When Signing a Contract, Always Read the Fine Print
by gentlemankitsune
Summary: Minato screws up when he signs a contract dictating that Naruto would be the protagonist of a videogame being developed by TOBI inc. This has unknown consequences at the time, but 13 years later it manifests in a way that leaves Naruto trapped in a world full of videogame UI, Syntax, and shit ton of confusion. Will Naruto be able to survive, or will it be GAME OVER?
1. a start

Chapter 1

It was a book.

The book that started it all.

Naruto was resting in bed at the house of Tsunami. He had just helped to liberate the country of wave and was exhausted not only physically, but also emotionally from the efforts to do so. Apparently Sasuke was okay, just exhausted and recovering from the false state of death that had been put on him. Sakura was watching over him and trying her best to nurse him back to health. And Kakashi was resting up as well, no doubt reading his porn.

Naruto had a problem.

He was bored.

Very bored.

With nothing to alleviate the boredom.

Naruto got up and checked his ninja bag for anything that might be of worth. Maybe he could practice kunai balancing or something else that was just so utterly mind numbing that it would waste his time in large amounts and still allow him to do something useful. Anything was better than staring at the ceiling with nothing to do

Naruto saw something that caught his eye in his ninja bag. Reaching in and grabbing it, Naruto pulled out a book. He didn't carry books around with him, so finding the book immediately put him on guard.

It couldn't have been more than a hundred pages long, making it the size of a small novel. The book didn't have a cover, a title, a blurb, or anything else that might denote whatever is was for.

'Is this Kakashi's porn?' Naruto thought to himself. The porn that he carried around with him usually had at least a cover page.

Realizing that it couldn't hurt to check what the book was, Naruto cracked it open to the front page. It read thusly:

_Welcome to Naruto: the game._

_By opening this book, you are accepting the terms and conditions of the contract stating that we have free reign over your personal and subjective reality to make it into the way that the contract dictates._

_This change will be happening in 3…2…1…_

Then Naruto's world turned black.

00000000

Naruto blearily opened his eyes to the world. It was dark. He was lying on the ground in no small amount of discomfort and he had a splitting headache. He looked around for any detail that would seem out of the ordinary that might give credence to why he was on the ground. Naruto spotted the book that he had grabbed out of his ninja pouch.

Picking it up, he found out that the front cover now read_ Naruto: the gaming handbook_. 'What the hell is this thing?' Naruto thought to himself.

On one hand, Naruto could open it up and find out. On the other hand, something worse than him blacking out could happen.

His curiosity won the debate. Cracking it open once more, new words came out on the front page.

_Welcome to Naruto: the gaming handbook._

_Would you like a tour?_

_[Yes] [No]_

"Erm… yes?" Naruto tried saying to it.

New words popped up under the confirmations

_Welcome to Naruto: the gaming handbook._

_Would you like a tour?_

_[Yes] [No]_

_*tap an option*_

Naruto pushed his finger down on _[Yes] _and new words popped up on the page.

_Welcome to Naruto: the gaming handbook._

_*All hints given by the tour guide (me) will be given in between asterisks*_

_*Please turn the page onto the base stats section.*_

Naruto complied and was visually assaulted by walls of text and statistics. 'Ugh. Reading.'

_*This is the 'base stats' section of the book. On it contains all of the things that make you, you.*_

_Naruto Uzumaki: EXP: 55/4000 level-ups available._

_*This shows your experience point score. You gain experience points only by fighting other strong individuals in open combat. This could be classified as fighting to the death, or simply sparring. Level-ups can only be achieved when you reach the current level cap of your experience level. Level-ups include points to affect your base stats as well as points to affect your attribute stats (which will be explained later)*_

_Chakra: 50_

_*This is the total amount of chakra available to you*_

_Chakra Control: 5_

_*This affects the expenditure of chakra for various tasks.*_

_Wisdom: 40_

_*Wisdom is all about how one uses the intelligence that one has for battle applications.*_

_Intelligence: 2_

_*Total level of factual knowledge*_

_Charisma: 50_

_*This stat represents how much people like you and are willing to listen to what you have to say. Usually only has an impact on strangers who don't have any pre-made thoughts and assumptions about your character*_

_Flexibility: 10_

_*The nimbleness and agility of a person*_

_Speed: 12_

_*How fast one moves, thinks, or reacts*_

_Strength: 10_

_*How much weight one is capable of being under*_

_Endurance: 40_

_*How long you can operate in battle scenarios*_

_*You are incapable of changing base stats by any other method than putting points into the areas given by level ups. This has its ups and downs, as you are incapable of working out for a strength stat increase, but your muscles will also never atrophy.*_

_*All of these stats are subjective to the average shinobi. i.e. 0's across the board are average for people who have just started the academy. Genin average in the 20's. Chunin average in the 40's. Jonin average in the 60's. ANBU are all over the place, but for simplicity, let's just say that they average in the 80's. Kage level shinobi average in the 100's*_

_*Please turn the page to the attributes section*_

'This has to be some kind of joke.' Naruto thought to himself. Nevertheless, he did what the tour guide told him to do.

_*This is the attributes section of the book. On it contains all the things that you are capable of doing*_

_*There are 7 expandable sections to the attributes section. Tap to enhance each one and learn more about them*_

_Ninjutsu_

_Genjutsu_

_Taijutsu_

_Senjutsu_

_Kenjutsu_

_Jinchuuriki jutsu_

_Miscellaneous_

Naruto tapped on ninjutsu first, which expanded into more sections.

_Learning rate 50/200_

_*As you can see, there is a limit to how well you can perform in any given area. There are various bonuses attributed to increases in these stats and you can't train an attribute better once it hits maximum*_

_Elemental affinities [tap to expand] _

_[tap here to go back]_

Naruto tapped on the affinities section.

_Wind 0/200 x2_

_*You have a wind affinity, which means that you will learn how to use wind elemental manipulation and wind jutsus twice as fast, and it will cost half attribute points to increment*_

_Fire 0/200 x.5_

_*Because you have a wind affinity, you will learn fire based elemental manipulation and jutsu's .5 times as fast, and it will cost double attribute points to increment*_

_Earth 0/200_

_Water 0/200_

_Lightning 0/200_

_[tap here to go back]_

Naruto went back to tap on the genjutsu option

_Learning rate 0/200_

_Detection 0/200_

_*affects how well you can detect illusions*_

_Dispel 0/200_

_*affects how well you can dispel illusions*_

_[tap here to go back]_

Naruto went to the taijutsu option

_Learning rate 20/200_

_Pain tolerance 25/200_

_*affects much pain you can endure before blacking out*_

_Form 5/200_

_*affects your elegance in hand to hand combat*_

_[tap here to go back]_

Naruto went to the Senjutsu option, which he had never heard of

_Pre-requisite of Senjutsu training: talk to a person who is capable of Senjutsu and convince them to teach you._

_[tap here to go back]_

Naruto sweatdropped 'Well never mind then' he thought to himself, while going to the kenjutsu option

_Learning rate 0/200_

_Form 0/200_

_Versatility 0/1000_

_*Versatility affects how well you fight with a variety of different weapons that you have no formal or teached experience in. From sais, to katanas, to chakrams, everything's game*_

_[tap here to go back]_

Jinchuuriki jutsu made Naruto's eyebrows go up in surprise. 'There are jutsu's that I can use with Fuzzball's chakra? Cool.'

_Control 2/1000_

_*Control affects how much of Kyuubi's chakra you can take at once and still remain emotionally stable*_

_Shape manipulation 0/1000_

_*affects how well you can manipulate and control the chakra to your whim, allowing you to access different levels and forms of your traditional bijuu cloak*_

_[tap here to go back]_

When Naruto tapped the miscellaneous option, it expanded across pages and pages of the book. On a cursory glance, Naruto saw that they all were out of 50 points and were all somewhat useless to him. Cooking, cleaning, singing, giving massages, forging, trap laying, seduction, poison identification and synthesizing.

Okay so maybe they all weren't so useless, but there were so many of them that Naruto would have a tough time sorting out the useful things to learn and the useless things to learn.

_*the affinity section is comprised of skills that can be increased out of training yourself, but can also be supplemented by the points that you receive from leveling up.*_

The last part of the last page of the affinity section read _*please turn the page to the merit section*_

Naruto did so and was met with a couple of pages that were full of grayed out boxes that had different words written down on them. Dead bone pulse, strength of a thousand, animal attributes, tongue modification, fire master, lightning rod, ice release.

'Wait, ice release? That's the thing that Haku had.' Naruto tapped the grayed out box that had Haku's kekai genkai on it.

_Merit: ice release_

_The legendary elemental kekai genkai of the Yuki clan._

_Pre-requisites: meet and battle a member of the Yuki clan. Water elemental manipulation 100/200. Wind elemental manipulation 100/200._

_Unlocks ice elemental manipulation and jutsus to learn._

_[tap here to go back]_

Naruto sighed 'This UI is so clunky'

At the merit screen, there was new text

_*As I'm sure that you've found out, you can unlock different unique jutsus, body modification techniques, or kekai genkai; but you'll need to meet the pre-requisites first. These are unlocked by using 'merit points', of which, one is awarded for every two level ups*_

_*Please flip to the 'people' section*_

The people section consisted of an index of people that he met sorted out in alphabetical order as well as all the information that he knew of them so far.

_*Please flip to the achievement section*_

'This is so fucking weird' Naruto thought to himself.

_*The achievement section contains all the things that you've done that are worthy of mention. Most of them have some sort of reward associated with them.*_

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: PASSED THE ACADEMY +5 intelligence_

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: BECAME A GENIN (FOR REAL) +1 to all base stats._

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: DEFEATED HAKU OF THE ICE +10 wind manipulation, +10 water manipulation_

_*this concludes the tour of Naruto: the game handbook. Please note that there will be other things within this world that will only make sense to you. But you have to find them for yourself. Have a good day. Or a good night in your case*_

'...Okay. Time to review the information so far.' Naruto thought out to himself. 'I've found some weird ass book that knocked me out when I first opened it up, then I opened it up again and it tells me all this weird stuff about me being in a game or some shit… this is either a really cruel and inventive prank, or I'm tripping out'

Naruto flipped the book back to beginning to find that his stats had been changed.

_Naruto Uzumaki: EXP: 55/4000 level-ups available._

_Chakra: 51_

_Chakra Control: 6_

_Wisdom: 41_

_Intelligence: 8_

_Charisma: 51_

_Flexibility: 11_

_Speed: 13_

_Strength: 11_

_Endurance: 41_

Naruto tapped on the level up option

_You've leveled up (3 times). You are now level 4. +15 base stat modifiers +50 affinity stat modifiers +2 merit points._

There were now pluses and minuses beside the base stat points. Naruto shrugged. If he had already spent this much time investing in the book, he would play along for a while longer.

He dumped all 15 of the base modifiers into his chakra control, as he had always been told that he needed to work on that because of his large chakra size. There was a prompt for confirmation, which he pressed.

"Urk" there was a burning sensation in Naruto's gut. It felt as though his chakra system was resorting itself out in the most painful way possible. The pain was gone as soon as it came and left Naruto gasping for breath.

"What the fuck is this thing?" Naruto said in between gasps for breath as he held onto the strange book. 'Wait… if this thing is real…'

Naruto put his hands together in cross formation and whispered out **"shadow clone." **There was soon a perfect replica of Naruto right next to the original, but that wasn't the cool part. What _was _the cool part was how it felt to spawn the clone. It was easier, vastly so. Not that it wasn't easy to begin with, but it was just the way that the chakra flowed inside of Naruto's body to create the construct of chakra that had him gaping at the book.

'This thing is real' he thought out in wonder.

Naruto reopened up the book and went to affinity section. He had 50 points and a lot of options to choose from. The blonde knew that his taijutsu sucked, but he didn't want to dump all the points into it just like he did with chakra control. So he decided to distribute it evenly across the genjutsu skill traits and the taijutsu skill traits. Leaving him with:

_Genjutsu:_

_Learning rate 9/200_

_Detection 9/200_

_Dispel 8/200_

_Taijutsu:_

_Learning rate 28/200_

_Pain tolerance 33/200_

_Form 13/200_

He pressed confirm, but didn't feel like anything of merit happened. There was no sudden pain in his gut, but that could easily be chalked up to him changing his affinity stats as opposed to his base stats.

He also had some merit points to do things with. Grinning with glee, he opened up the merit section to see what had been unlocked for him.

Not much, as it would seem. There were three boxes that had lost their dull gray color in favor of a light beige color. They read: _sharingan (stage 1), affability, and medical ninjutsu._

Naruto wanted to immediately shove a merit point and get the sharingan, but held off at the mention of stage 1. Looking deeper into it, Naruto discovered that the sharingan had 5 stages in total. Stage 1, stage 2, stage 3, mangenkyou, and eternal mangenkyou. All of these had incredible powers associated with them, but they also had steeper and steeper requirements with each iteration. The eternal mangenkyou required Naruto to kill someone with the normal mangenkyou sharingan eyes, have 80 in almost all the base stats, and invest 10 merit points towards it. Naruto wasn't sure whether or not the investment in the first stages would be worth the investment in the latter stages, so he checked out the other merit points that were available to him.

_Affability:_

_You are a nice and honest guy, who has a quality that makes people gravitate towards you._

_Unlocks: 'What people think of you' in the people section_

_Pre-requisites: have 50 charisma._

_Cost: 1 merit point._

That was a really good thing to have. He could find out how people think about him and change their perspectives. He tentatively put a point towards that. Naruto rationalized it as the fact that he could always choose the sharingan at a later date.

_Medical ninjutsu:_

_You have enough chakra control that you can start the enrollment into the medical nin field._

_Unlocks: 'medical ninjutsu' in the ninjutsu section._

_Pre-requisites: have 20 chakra control_

_Cost: 1 merit point._

Naruto flashed back to the bridge. Sasuke was dying of various puncture wounds and Naruto couldn't do anything to help him. He knew that Sasuke was okay and just in a catatonic state after the battle, but he didn't want to feel that helpless ever again, and thusly put a point in towards it.

All the spendable points were gone. So Naruto headed over to the people section to find out how his teammates feel about him

_Kakashi:_

_What (Kakashi) thinks of me: annoying_

_Sakura:_

_What (Sakura) thinks of me: annoying_

_Sasuke:_

_What (Sasuke) thinks of me: annoying, slightly grudging respect_

Naruto's heart sank a bit at how Sakura thought of him.

'Wait a minute… this doesn't help me at all!' Naruto shouted out mentally. '*mental sigh* I should have gone with the sharingan.'

From the window in Naruto's room, he could tell that it was still dark out. His eyelids felt heavy. He had been having a strange night.

'It's probably a good idea to get some sleep'

Naruto put the book on the nightstand and hit the bed with a thud.

Slept took him almost instantly

**AN/ how's it going?**

**I've decided on going with a Naruto the videogame storyline for my new project.**

**I don't have any pairings on mind at the moment. Write a review and tell me who you think it should be. I might do a harem, might not. Still a bit too early to tell.**

**As always, have a gentlemanly day.**


	2. a better teacher

Together chapter 2

"Hey Kakashi?"

"Yes?"

"You're a sucky teacher."

Team 7 was walking on a road that towards Konoha. Sasuke had to take it slow because of his injuries, Sakura was checking up on him very often, Kakashi was absentmindedly reading his porn, and Naruto had his head stuck in the Naruto Guidebook. More specifically, its People section.

_Kakashi:_

_What (Kakashi) thinks of you: annoying_

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: mostly unknown_

_Merits: stolen sharingan, dog summoning contract_

_Teaching merit: .2x ninjutsu .2x genjutsu .2x taijutsu .1x kenjutsu x10 dogkeeping_

_*the teaching merit signifies how fast and well a person is capable of teaching you. If nothing is mentioned in it, you can assume that they have a 1x ability to teach you. For example: if you are taught by a person of 1x ninjutsu or lower, you would probably be better off just teaching that aspect to yourself. Teaching merit does not signify personal strength, merely how well someone teaches you those concepts.*_

_*also keep in mind that a person can only teach as much as they know.*_

"Oh? Well you're a sucky student." Kakashi said without looking away from his porn.

Naruto wanted to show off his relatively high ninjutsu learning rate to prove the lazy teacher otherwise, but decided it would be for the best if people didn't know that his life had suddenly been turned into a videogame.

Naruto stewed in silence for a while before asking "Do you know anyone that can teach medical ninjutsu?"

This comment did manage to draw Kakashi's eyes away from the book and to his blond student. "I'm sure that you could to talk to someone at the hospital if you wanted to become a medic nin. But why the sudden interest? You don't seem like the type to go into medicine and your chakra control is still shot to hell."

"It is not. I've gotten better with it." Naruto said indignantly.

Kakashi walked over to a tree and plucked a small leaf from a low hanging branch. Tossing it to the blonde protagonist, Kakashi said "Once you can float that leaf on your hand using only your chakra, I'll talk to a friend of mine to get you enrolled in medic training."

Kakashi pulled his attention back to his porn and started walking on the road again. "You know Sakura, you could receive benefits from medic training as well with your chakra control."

"Really sensei?" she asked excitedly.

"I don't see why you shouldn't be able-"

"Done." Naruto said, interrupting their conversation.

"Huh?" Kakashi asked. Looking back at the blonde, his single eye went wide in surprise. Naruto was indeed floating the leaf on his hand, rather effortlessly as well.

"Naruto…"

"You'll talk to your friend, right?" Naruto asked excitedly.

"Err… sure. But more importantly, how are you able to do that?"

"What?"

"The… the leaf exercise. I haven't taught you that yet."

"That's 'cuz you're a sucky teacher."

"Naruto…" Kakashi said seriously.

"I uhhh… I heard it from a friend and I've been practicing it while you guys were resting." Naruto quickly said, trying to bullshit his teacher.

Kakashi knew that his student was hiding something from him, but he decided that a chakra control exercise was of no consequence and did not merit further investigation. "Hmmm… okay, I'll talk to that friend of mine."

"YATTA!" Naruto cried, jumping up in the air with glee. Once he came back down, the blonde once again buried his head in his guidebook.

Sasuke had picked up a leaf as well and was trying to emulate what his teammate had done, but it was hard. To balance a leaf on his hand meant having to create a constant stream of chakra that held the leaf in place on all sides. He couldn't use too much chakra on any one side, otherwise it would just fall off. He also couldn't use too much chakra in general, otherwise it would crumple under the pressure.

"Oi dobe." Sasuke said to the blonde after trying the exercise for a while.

"Yeah?" Naruto asked without lifting his head from the guidebook.

"How'd you do that?"

"What?"

"The leaf exercise!"

"You just hold in place with your chakra." Naruto said simply.

"I know that. But how did you do it?"

"I… held it in place with chakra?" Naruto said with a confused lilt.

Sasuke sighed. "What I mean is, do you have any hints for completing the exercise."

"You just create like… a circle of chakra around it, then anchor it to your hand."

Sasuke did what Naruto said to do, but was met with the same success as his previous attempts. "Dobe. I'm having trouble keeping the chakra stream consistent. How did you get around that particular problem?" Sasuke said slowly with a pissed off expression on his face.

"I don't… I don't know what to tell you. Practice?"

Sasuke looked to Sakura, who was trying the same exercise and was getting it far better than he was. He made his way over to her the help that he wasn't getting from his other teammate.

Naruto was leafing through the guidebook, checking up on the miscellaneous section for anything of value when he found a new part of the book that wasn't shown in the tour.

_Abilities/status effects:_

_Shadow clone [tap to enhance]_

_Transformation_

_Sexy jutsu_

_Substitution jutsu_

Curious, Naruto tapped on the shadow clone to see what it had in it.

_Shadow clone:_

_The ability to split ones chakra evenly up between one or more constructs._

_Uses: combat support, ?, ?._

This confused Naruto 'Why is the shadow clone the only one that has more detail to it? And what other uses does it have?'

"Hey Kakashi?"

Kakashi sighed. Why was his student so talkative all of the sudden. "Yes?"

"What can the shadow clone technique do?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Like… what are its uses?"

Kakashi closed his book and looked Naruto in the eye. "What's brought this on?"

"Curiosity."

"You suddenly became curious about the inner workings and applications of your jutsu?"

"Yep." Naruto said with a smile.

Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose in agitation. "Okay, I'll tell you."

"So you _do_ know."

"Mmhmm."

"Why haven't you told me this before?"

"Just… shut up and listen."

Naruto nodded obediently.

"As you know, the shadow clone jutsu splits up your chakra between your copies and you get it back when it dispels. This allows for all the clone's memories to be given back to you when its chakra is disrupted. You can use this to train in a hard concept much faster, or to spy on enemies. The reason I haven't told you about this function yet is because training in that method can be extremely dangerous if you take too much information at once. I don't trust you enough to train responsibly."

"So I can train in medical jutsu and ninjutsu at the same time?"

"Whatever floats your boat."

"Awesome. I am going to completely abuse this." Naruto said with a cackling laugh.

Kakashi sweatdropped at his student's antics. "Just remember to not go overboard and kill yourself. It'd be a bad mark as a teacher to have a student to kill himself training."

"Do you honestly care about what other people think of you?"

"Hmm. Good point." Kakashi went back to reading his porn.

"Hey Kakashi?"

'Why can't I just read in peace?' Kakashi thought to himself

"Yes?"

"Do you know anyone else who could help me train?"

"If it's an apprenticeship that you're looking for, they can be rather hard to obtain. But if you just need training in a singular subject, I think I could point you in the right direction."

"Okay then… how about ninjutsu?"

"Asuma Sarutobi specializes in elemental ninjutsu. Particularly wind and fire. But you'll have to convince him to train you in his free time because he has a team to train as well."

"Genjutsu?"

"Kurenai Yuhi. Same problem as Asuma."

"Taijutsu?"

"Mighto Gai. Same problem as Asuma."

"Senjutsu?"

"What's Senjutsu?"

"Never mind. Kenjutsu?"

"Hayate Gekko or his fiancé Yugao Uzuki."

"That's good to know. Uhh…"

"Yes?"

"Anyone who knows stuff like poisons, and lying, and trap setting?" Naruto said unsurely.

"…I suppose you could ask Anko Mitarashi for those things. She's a member of torture and interrogation, so she's pretty good with sneaky stuff like that. But she's kind of unhinged."

"That's fine. I'll just use shadow clones." Naruto said with a smile. "Where can I find them?"

"Just go to the shinobi log at mission assignment. They'll point you to their living residences."

"Awesome!"

00000000

Several slow, monotonous days of walking later.

Naruto ran into a problem with his teaching situation.

Namely, no one wanted to.

Asuma, Kurenai, Gai, Hayate and Uzuki all professed that their schedules were far too busy to take on another student. Well, Gai had suggested that Naruto could work out with them once his training with Lee, Tenten, and Neji had ended. But Naruto didn't get any benefits from working out anymore, so he graciously refused the enigmatic man's offer.

Naruto couldn't even find Anko. On the door to her apartment read 'If you need me. I'm probably at the forest of death.'

Where the fuck was the forest of death?

Which led to his current situation. Being at home and browsing through the merit section of the guidebook, waiting for the medic nin that Kakashi knew to take him to the hospital to start his training.

Naruto put the book down. Browsing through the merit section was cool, but he didn't think that he'd remember the requirements for each individual one.

Naruto took a deep breath and exhaled very slowly and very loudly.

He was bored again.

Naruto eyed his ninja pouch with a smirk on his face. 'I wonder if there's anything in there.' It was worth a try. The last time he checked his ninja pouch when he was bored had changed his viewpoint on life.

Naruto reached inside and felt something cylindrical in nature. 'No way.'

He grasped the object and pulled out a scroll. Well, it wasn't really a scroll. More like a poster that was wrapped around a short wooden pole.

Unfurling it, it read:

_Homeowner's guidebook _

_Total money: $324_

_Cleanliness: 44/100_

_Renovation cost: $15,000_

_New apartment? [browse housing]_

Under that was a detailed diagram of Naruto's floor plan with boxes in the middle of each room. Slightly perturbed by the stats, Naruto tapped on one of the boxes to find out what it would do.

A list of new rooms came up, each with a description and cost to replace the old one.

_Small greenhouse:_

_You will be able to grow your own poisonous or medical plants to help you with your job as a shinobi._

_Pre-requisite: gardening 25/50_

_Cost: $3000_

_Small Dojo:_

_You will be able to fight, spar, and practice with other people in a safe, personal environment_

_Pre-requisite: Taijutsu form 40/200_

_Cost: $10,000_

_Torture and interrogation room:_

_You will be able to 'extract information' in a personal, friendly environment_

_Pre-requisite: T&amp;I 20/50_

_Cost: 2,000_

_Master bedroom:_

_Contains a large bed, two dressers, and a flat screen TV_

_Pre-requisite: nothing_

_Cost: 15,000_

_Love room:_

_Contains anything and everything that you and your partner might want to experiment with in the bedroom._

_Pre-requisite: have another permanent resident of whom you are romantically involved with._

_Cost: $30,000_

_Grand bathroom:_

_Two sinks, two full sized mirrors, a luxurious clawfoot bath, a fully stocked shower, and a beautiful floor plan_

_Pre-requisite: nothing_

_Cost: $60,000_

_*There will be more room options the larger house or apartment that you own. Also keep in mind that unless you expand, you will not be able to get every room here*_

'Cleanliness is 44 out of 100?' Naruto looked around. The apartment certainly could use a spring cleaning day. Or two.

Our blonde protagonist spawned 3 clones and told them to clean the place up while he studied the Homeowners guidebook some more. To start with, he tapped on the _[browse housing]_ button.

Another list popped up, but this time of various houses and apartments throughout the city of Konohagakure that were available for purchase. There was even an option to buy the apartments that were next to his in order to extend it somewhat.

'Well this is cool, but I don't have the money to do anything with it.' Naruto exited the list and was pleased to find that the cleanliness was already at 51/100.

"Keep up the good work guys." There were various grunts of affirmation throughout the living quarters.

After Naruto had studied the poster some more, his doorbell rang out. Quickly rolling the poster back up and tossing it onto the ground, he ran to open the door to a shinobi that was dressed in pure white medic smocks.

"You're Naruto Uzumaki?"

"Yup. You're the guy that Kakashi-sensei knows?"

The man nodded.

"Cool." Naruto spawned another clone and told it "Follow this guy. He'll train you to be a medic."

"I know." It answered. "I'm you."

"A shadow clone?" the man asked.

"That's okay right?"

The medic pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, it's fine. You wouldn't be the first person to do it." he began walking away from the door with the clone in tow.

"Oh wait!" Naruto called after him

He turned around and raised an eyebrow.

"Do you know where the forest of death is?"

"Err… yeah. It's training ground 44 in Training block D. you can't miss it. It looks like… well, a forest of death."

"Cool. Thanks man." Naruto promptly closed the door and went to gather some ninja supplies. Hopefully, this Anko chick wouldn't turn him away immediately.

00000000

The forest of death.

Naruto was walking around the fenced in training ground 44 hoping that Anko would be somewhere around the edge of it as opposed to inside of it.

Because there was no way he was venturing into that creepy ass place.

Naruto felt a projectile whistle past his ear. Whirling around to face the perpetrator, he found himself in front of a woman with purple hair wearing a large trench coat over a tightly woven mesh body suit and a brown miniskirt.

She bent over to smirk at him. "You lost kid?"

Quickly gaining his composure, he said "That depends, are you Anko Mitarashi?"

She stood up and started pacing around with an arrogant demeanor. "Has my fame exceeded me that much? Yes kid, I'm the wonderful and awesome Anko Mitarashi. What can I do you for?"

"Will you teach me?" Naruto asked confidently.

She deadpanned. "What?"

"Will you teach me?" Naruto repeated.

"Err… well, what do you want to be taught?" She lost her arrogant demeanor in favor of a befuddled one.

"Well… like, you know. Poisons, lying, trap detection, trap laying… stuff that you know."

"What, like an apprenticeship?"

"Sure."

"Sorry kid, I don't do apprenticeships." She closed her eyes and made to walk away from him.

"Eh?! Wait. Please. Nobody else will teach me." Naruto cried out after her.

She turned around and rose an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yeah. I have the laziest jonin instructor ever. I'm getting combat medic training, but I really need someone to instruct me on the essentials." He pleaded at her.

"A lazy instructor huh? You get Asuma or something?"

"Kakashi."

Her eyebrows rose in surprise. "Kakashi? He took a squad? Ohhh, I feel bad for you kid."

"See! So you'll do it?"

She thought it over for a few seconds before replying. "If I you have the free time, come over in the afternoons, I'll be here. If I'm on a mission, I'll leave a note. But I still don't do apprenticeships."

"Thanks so much. Where do we start?"

She smirked cruelly at him. "I'll only do it if you manage to survive an hour in the forest of death."

A small transparent window opened up right in front of her. It read:

_Mission!_

_Survive an hour in the forest of death with Anko Mitarashi._

_Rewards: increased influence with Anko Mitarashi, Status effect: Student of Anko, 5000 exp._

"What's up kid? You look… out of it."

Even if there was a pop up in front of him, nothing was perceived by her. "Huh? Oh… yeah, I accept."

The pop up closed down. "That's great kid. You've got 1 minute."

"One minute before what?"

"I start chasing you." Her smile was extremely off-putting to Naruto.

He ran as fast as he could to the gates.

00000000

About 60 minutes later.

Anko was frowning. The first 15 or so minutes had gone by swimmingly for her. She would track the kid and harass him with little things like a fist to the gut, a boa constrictor, or even just insults thrown from afar. But after that, he started liberally using shadow clones to confuse her and lead her on false trails.

She had to admit that tracking him multiple times and dispelling the clones was really fun, but they had no sustenance to them. They just dispelled and that was it. No screams, no agony, no pain. Just poof, they're gone.

For a kid, he had absolutely huge chakra reserves. They definitely surpassed her own if he could make so many splits of himself and still operate.

She was amused by all the time wasted on this survival exercise, but other than the shadow clone, he was definitely not a very good shinobi. He never even tried to chakra climb a tree to get away. Every clone that she encountered had been on foot. And even before that, the kid always ran on the ground. He didn't fight very well and showed no other skills that she could see.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a broken twig and a shoeprint in mud. A clone had been around here. She was about to run in pursuit when she heard someone shout down at her from above. "Hour's up!"

A thud later and her new blonde student was standing right in front of her. "You'll teach me now right?"

She was looking at him, gaping like a fish. "You… you led me on."

Naruto grinned. "Yup. I spent the first part on foot so you'd think that I couldn't do the tree-walking exercise, then I made an assload of clones that distracted you from the real me. After that, I just shadowed you from above. Gotta say, you're kind of unhinged."

She smiled at him. "What makes you say that brat?"

"Well you did summon a giant snake to eat one of my clones. What would you have done if that was the real me?"

"Pretend like you never existed." She said through a dangerous smile.

"That's… concerning."

"Mmhmm. It seems like you've passed through the survival training. Let's call it a day for now. Remember, meet me here on afternoons."

"Yosh."

She body flickered away from him, leaving him in the middle of the woods. 'Wait, where's the exit?'

"Well fuck. This is you trying to get back at me, isn't it?" he said to the open air.

"No it's not!" a voice sounded out from somewhere above him.

00000000

About 4 hours later.

It was thoroughly dark when Naruto finally walked through the door to his apartment.

With a groan, he fell down onto his bed and almost fell asleep. At some point, the shadow clone that was with the medic had dispelled and offloaded a lot of information into Naruto's head. He passed through at least, but it did cost Naruto a huge headache in the middle of the woods.

A headache that he did not need.

Naruto reached out for the book that was on his nightstand and opened it up. There was a text window that was superimposed onto his base stats.

_Mission accomplished._

_You get: 5000 experience points, status effect: Student of Anko_

The pop up vanished as soon as he stopped reading it. he had a level up, which he tapped on.

_You are now level 5. +5 base stat modifiers, +20 attribute stat modifiers._

_*the more you level up, the larger your attribute points gained will be, but base stat modifiers always stay the same.*_

Naruto dumped the five points into intelligence. Making it go up to 13. After hitting confirm, his headache worsened exponentially.

After that, he flipped to the attribute section and decided to divide up the 20 points amongst poison identification and synthesizing, trap laying, trap detection, and poison resistance in the miscellaneous section. Bringing them all up to 5/50.

With nothing left to change, Naruto dropped the book back onto the nightstand and promptly fell asleep.

**AN/ thanks to all those who've read so far and reviewed or PMed me about pairing suggestions.**

**I've got a good idea about where I'm heading, but I'm still open to suggestions.**


	3. a lesson in romance

Chapter 3

_Anko Mitarashi:_

_What (Anko) thinks about me: interesting_

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: extraneous ninja skills, mostly unknown_

_Teaching ability: 2x poison identification and synthesizing, 2x trap laying, 2x trap detection, 2x seduction, 2x torture and interrogation, 2x lying, 2x poison resistance, 2x venom resistance, 2x field medicine, 1.5x ninjutsu, 1.5x taijutsu._

'What does interesting mean? God, affability is so useless.'

_Shikamaru Nara:_

_What (Shikamaru) thinks about me: loud_

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown_

'Why are all of these descriptions of me so vague?'

_Chouji Akamichi:_

_What (Chouji) thinks about me: nice_

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown _

'Thanks man. I knew you'd have my back'

_Ino Yamanaka:_

_What (Ino) thinks about me: annoying _

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown_

'Well, screw you too.'

_Shino Aburame:_

_What (Shino) thinks about me:_

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown_

'It's blank, I guess that means that he doesn't have an opinion of me.'

_Kiba Inuzuka:_

_What (Kiba) thinks about me: loud, annoying, stupid_

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown_

'Damn mutt.'

_Hinata Hyuuga:_

_What (Hinata) thinks about me: nice, kind, caring, hard-working, funny, up-lifting, strong, determined._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown_

'Woah, Hinata thinks that way about me? Why didn't she say anything in the academy? I've barely interacted with her.'

Naruto shook his head in confusion and exited the People section of his book. 'Well, my life has been turned into a game. My life specifically. It's like it affects no one other than me.' Naruto looked up at the ceiling in thought. 'Becoming the Hokage is a good goal and all, but I'm able go on the road to do anything. Medic-nin, ninjutsu specialist, genjutsu expert. I need a goal that I can work towards to in the meantime.'

Naruto went back to the 'merit' section of the guidebook and flipped to the last couple of pages for anything that spoke to him. Out of the corner of his eye, Naruto saw something called _a romantic at heart._ Tapping on it, it read:

_Romantic at heart_

_You know how people feel to such a degree that you can innately know how they romantically feel about you, as well as what their romantic interests are._

_Pre-requisite: Charisma 30, Seduction 20/50_

_Unlocks: new features in the 'people' section of the guidebook._

Naruto's eyes grew wide. 'If I get this, then I can finally get Sakura to go on a date with me!'

Looks like Naruto has a new goal to strive for.

00000000

Mission assignment

Naruto was looking at another pop up with a little bit of confusion.

_New mission._

_Mr. Hizo needs some extra hands to milk his cows_

_Pre-requisite: have the approval of one of the mission directors._

_Reward: $300_

"What are you staring at Naruto?" Sakura asked with a little bit of concern.

"Oh, uh… nothing. Hey Kakashi?"

"Mm?" he grunted

"Can I take extra missions on my own?"

"You have to take the mission that I have assigned for all of us. But you can take some on your free time for extra money if you wish."

Naruto created a few shadow clones. "Looks like I've got some free time." he said with a smirk.

Kakashi eyed them carefully. "If it's okay with the mission directors…"

The chunin on duty sighed in annoyance. "It's not practical to send clones on missions C-ranked and above because of the relatively high chance that they could dispel mid-way through. That being said, there are a lot of D-ranked missions that have relatively low chances of that happening. So long as the mission is completed, you'll get paid. But also be aware that if are unable to complete the assignment, you won't get any money and you could also get fined for it."

"So that's a yes for shadow clones?"

"I guess. But all the responsibility rests on your shoulders."

Naruto smiled in glee. 'That takes care of the money problem. Shadow clones are so cool.'

Kakashi looked down on Naruto with his usual aloof expression. "Naruto, remember what I said about abusing shadow clones."

"Yeah yeah, I got it. But I don't see what the big deal is. After the shadow clone that went to the hospital dispelled, I only got a small headache."

"Exactly. That was _one_ clone. If too many clones that have studied various shinobi fields all dispel at once, your brain will fry itself from the offload."

"I know, I know. I'll only use shadow clones in mass to do mind-numbing tasks. And only assign two at the most to do other things"

"Oi! I don't want to do 'mind-numbing' missions" one shadow clone cried indignantly.

"Oh cool your pants. Everything you do, I remember doing."

"That doesn't make it okay."

"Yes it does."

"No it doesn't."

While Naruto and his clone were fighting, Sakura leaned next to Sasuke and whispered "Seeing Naruto argue with himself it kind of funny."

"Hn"

"Oh don't be like that. You have to admit that it's at least pretty surreal."

Sasuke grunted a confirmation once more.

About 30 minutes later.

The mission that they were all assigned on was to clean up a pond that had litter all around its rim in the middle of a botanical garden.

It didn't take up a lot of mental acuity to complete, but they all had to work together because they were all in charge of a different type of litter.

Naruto was in charge of trash, Sasuke was in charge of glass/metal recyclables, and Sakura was in charge of plastic recyclables. All while Kakashi watched from the corner of his eye of course.

It was a large pond. To get the work done in any reasonable amount of time, they had to either call out a particular item that another person was in charge of or throw it to them to be put into the bag. The hard part was that they had to communicate well, or else someone might get a soggy banana peel to the face.

"Ahhh! Fuck!" Naruto threw the peel that had landed on his head to ground as quickly as he was able to. Realizing that it was only a piece of trash, he shouted out "Oi!"

"Sorry Naruto." Sakura apologized sheepishly. "But I did call it out to you."

"I didn't hear it. Can you call it out louder next time?"

"Okay."

Naruto picked up the rapidly sinking banana peel and tossed it back into his bag. After a few more minutes of this, when Naruto had made his way unknowingly close to his sensei, Kakashi asked disinterestedly. "So what're you saving up for?"

"What?" Now Naruto had to look for trash on the surface and sides of the water, respond to Sasuke and Sakura throwing trash at him to put in his bag, and talk to Kakashi all at the same time.

"You must be taking extra missions for a reason. And I doubt that completing D-ranked missions has become something of a hobby to you."

"I'm saving up to buy the apartment next to mine." Naruto said, face still looking down at the water for trash.

"Why?"

"For the space."

"What do you need more space for?"

"Rooms."

"Like what?"

"A dojo maybe."

"A dojo?"

"Yeah, got a problem with that?"

"Why don't you just go to a dojo instead of wasting thousands of dollars' worth of renovations for a dojo in your living space?"

"It was just a thought. Maybe I could make a greenhouse in there."

"For what reason?"

"I don't know. Poisonous and medical plants?"

"It's more cost effective to buy those at a local shinobi store."

"Exotic plants that aren't sold there?"

"You'd have to get the exotic plant first."

"Then I'll fucking get it. Why are you questioning me so much?"

"It amuses me."

"Well guess what? I don't really- GAH!" a decomposing pizza box hit Naruto in the head.

"Open your ears dobe!" Sasuke yelled at him from across the pond.

Naruto sighed and put the pizza box into the bag. "What kind of person brings a pizza box to a botanical garden?" he muttered to himself.

"So how did the medic training go?"

"I got accepted. Now I'm sending a clone over there every morning."

"And your search for another teacher?"

"Only one of them accepted me." He said dismally.

"Oh really? Which one?"

"Anko Mitarashi."

"Really?"

"You sound surprised."

"She isn't exactly a proponent of the whole 'teacher student relationship.' Out of all of them, I thought she would be the one to turn you down the fastest."

"Well she didn't accept to it until I told her that you're my jonin-sensei."

"Why?"

"Don't know. By the way, when is team training going to be over?"

"Work out a time table with her already?"

"Not really. I'm just supposed to show up whenever I'm free in the afternoon."

"Hm. By the time the mission is over and team training is done, I'm thinking it might be 3ish."

"You sure? Because you have terrible sense of time."

"Hey, I've got a great sense of time. I'm just delayed for things."

"Delayed?"

"Yes."

"By what? The road of life? A black cat? An old woman who needs to cross the street?"

"Some variation of that." Kakashi went back to his porn, not wanting to talk anymore.

Naruto went back to the trash collecting in thought. Kakashi did have a point with his housing renovations. A dojo or a greenhouse might not be the best of things to spend money on. Perhaps he could spend it on things for pleasure and luxury. Like the master bedroom, or the grand bathroom.

He could also just spend the money to get into a decently sized house to see if there were any other types of rooms worth buying. But that was risky. What if there were no rooms that had any actual use? It's not like putting a forge in a house meant getting better weapons. That being said, he now had the ability to receive mass amounts of capital by sending shadow clones en masse to the mission assignment room. He was going to start receiving large amounts of money and didn't have a lot of other things to spend it on.

Wait. Maybe he could use the money to buy training from a jonin. No, that wouldn't work. Being a jonin is a rather lucrative business. High ranked missions pay a lot of money, they wouldn't need any more for an incentive to teach. Anything they did, they did as a matter of what they wanted, or were obligated to do.

Team 7 passed through the rest of the mission rather effortlessly, with Naruto only occasionally receiving a piece of trash to the face. Once the pond was clear of litter, Naruto and co. gathered around Kakashi for orders on what to do next.

"Okay guys, I've got some news. In a week there's going to be the annual chunin exams and we're hosting it. It's going to be slightly irregular if what Hokage-sama told me is accurate. You all have to sign waivers and report to the academy in exactly one week's time."

"Chunin exams?" Sakura asked.

"It's the series of tests that occur every six months within an alternating cast of the main five villages."

"Will you actually train us for it?" Sasuke asked.

"I'm sure that teamwork exercises will be enough for now. If you want extra training, you could do what Naruto did and find another teacher."

"So you're just pushing us off to someone else?"

"You don't have to sound so vindictive about it."

"Wait. Naruto got another teacher?" Sakura asked.

"Yup." Kakashi answered "Her name is Anko Mitarashi."

"Oi dobe, this Anko chick. What does she teach?" Sasuke asked Naruto

"Uhh… lying, and trap setting, and trap detection, and poisons. Stuff like that."

"Hn. Doesn't sound very useful."

"Then don't ask to be taught by her."

"Okay, you three" Kakashi said, interrupting them. "I'm going to go now. Train however you like."

"Hey! You said that we'd be done by 3. It's almost noon." Naruto said.

Kakashi pointed upwards to the sky. There was a hawk flying around in lazy circles. "That means that the hokage needs us jonin." With that, he body flickered away from his students.

"Rrgg. I hate that guy." Naruto said.

"So what are we supposed to do now?" Sakura asked.

"I don't know. Maybe Anko is where she said that we'd meet." Naruto said, mostly to himself.

"And I could check by the hospital to see if I'm good for being a medic nin." Sakura said.

"Well what am I supposed to do?" Sasuke asked.

"Get another teacher?" Naruto suggested.

"I don't know any other teachers."

"You like fire ninjutsu right? Kakashi said that Asuma Sarutobi was good with those."

"Didn't he turn you down?"

"Yup." Naruto started to walk off to what he perceived was the direction of the forest of death. Anko's part in the People section of the book said that she was good with seduction. Just the thing he needed to get the 'Romantic at heart' merit.

Sasuke and Sakura also parted and went their separate ways after Naruto left.

About 30 minutes later.

Naruto found Anko sitting on a shack and eating dango on a stick. There was a wall to her opposite that had some of the sticks pointing out in a particular way.

"Hey kid." Anko said, waving at him. "You're kind of early. I'm still eating."

Naruto hopped up on the shack to join her. "Yeah, there was a jonin meeting and Kakashi had to leave."

She nodded in understanding. "So how is it going Naruto Uzumaki, genin of Konohagakure, retainer of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, and propagator of the shadow clone technique?"

Naruto was put on his guard immediately. "How do you know all that stuff about me?"

She nearly burst out laughing. "Phhhhhht. You're kidding right? It was so easy to get information on the kid running around in neon orange."

"It is _not_ neon orange. Why do people keep on saying that?"

"Because your outfit is difficult to look at in the sun. So bright."

"It's just orange. And are you sure that you can talk about my tenant?"

"Is that what you're calling it? You found out about it. That means that it's declassified right?"

"I don't know."

"Whatever you say Kyuubi kid. Ohhh! That's what I'm calling you from now on. Kyuubi kid."

"Don't call me Kyuubi kid."

She feigned a wince. "Sore spot?"

"You could say that." Naruto said with an annoyed tone. Maybe convincing her to teach him was a bad idea after all. "So when are you going to teach me?"

"I dunno." She said with a mouth full of dango. Swallowing, she said "Whatcha wanna start with?"

"Seduction."

She spewed out all the food that was in her mouth and burst out laughing.

"What?" he asked.

Calming down a bit, she asked in return "Aren't you a bit young to learn how to get into a girl's pants?"

Blushing a little bit, he retorted "It's not like that."

"Oh really? What's it like then?"

"Well… it's like this… I, uhhh… Okay, what is the formal definition of seduction?"

"Seduction is… using your words and actions to make someone of a compatible sexuality as you, interested in you romantically or sexually. Then using that infatuation with you to loosen their mouth and obtain information from them."

"See, getting someone interested in you romantically. That's not trying to get into a girl's pants."

She gave him a queer look. "Why do you want to learn seduction? That's a pretty weird thing to want to learn, especially seeing as you're only 12."

"I'm 13."

"The fact still remains. Why do you want to learn seduction?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head and looked at her sheepishly. "There's this… girl I like-"

She groaned audibly. "The reason that you sought me out to be your teacher was so you could learn how to talk to girls?" she asked with an irritated tone of voice.

"No, Seduction's just item one."

"And item two?"

"Trap detection."

"Three?"

Trap laying."

"Four?"

"Lying."

She looked him up and down in confusion. "When I was talking to people to get information on you, they all said that you're crazy for jutsu. You aren't going to ask for any?"

"I'm kind of taking things one step at a time for the moment."

Anko let out a long, audible sigh. "Seduction?"

"Yeah."

"Okay then. So you're not really interested in getting chicks to give you information on stuff that you might want to know. You just want to ask this girl out?"

"Isn't seduction also a good thing to know how to do?"

"Not really. There aren't very many missions that require you to obtain information via seduction. It's usually easier and cleaner to kidnap the person and drag him or her to Torture and Interrogation."

"It's cleaner to torture a person for information instead of talking to them?"

"There's a difference of opinion on the subject. But it's going to be hard for you because you're male. To get men to talk, you just have to put on a shit load of make-up, show your boobs off, and act interested in him. Women are harder."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Society, biological makeup, psychological makeup. There are a lot of theories as to why men and women act differently on a fundamental level. But that's not important right now. What is important is that they do. And that's going to change the approach on correctly seducing them."

"So how do I do it?"

"Well… the first part to seducing a female is to get any and all background information on her as possible before talking to her. Once you do, learn her interests."

"So… stalk them?"

"Bingo. After that, make sure that you 'accidentally' run into her during her usual routine and show off that you are interested in something that she is. She'll take notice of that and probably confront you about it. And because you're not stupid and actually studied up on the aforementioned subject, you'll be a master at conversing with her."

"Then what?"

"Ask her out to coffee or something. God, this is so weird to be telling a 12 year old."

"13."

"Once you get her to coffee, be a charming and affable person. At the end of it, she'll want to meet up again."

"Mmhmm."

"After a few more dates, casually bring up the subject that you're trying to learn about. More often than not, she'll spill the beans on it. If not, then just rinse and repeat."

"But what if it's something that is too much of private knowledge that it can't be brought up in public conversation."

"That's usually when you drug her and haul her ass to T&amp;I, but if you want to risk it, you can deepen your relationship until it's to the point where she could trust you with the secret."

"Okay… and how would this work for kunoichi?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's kind of hard to stalk a kunoichi. And what are you going to do for common interests?"

"You would honestly be surprised to find out how easy it is to get information on a shinobi or a kunoichi. As for the common interests, if she doesn't have any hobbies, then she usually has some form of unique fighting style. Or at least uncommon enough to where meeting someone on the street who has the same interests would be a noteworthy event. For example, if someone wanted to seduce me, he would run into me on my way to a dango shop (Because I love dango) and 'accidentally' drop his brand new thumb screws to call attention to them (Because I'm good at… extracting information), then we'd talk about our favorite information extraction techniques, then he'd ask me out and I'd say yes because he is a nice and charming individual."

"You go for the nice and charming?"

"You bring up a good point. Sometimes women like a different type of guy than the nice and charming, but that's something to be gotten into later."

"How would I go about getting a girl who likes another guy to 'give up information'?"

"Drug her and haul her ass to T&amp;I."

"Anko…"

"What? It is! Trying to seduce a girl who has her eyes on another man is like trying to sprout wings and fly to Fuckville. It can't be done unless you do something to drastically change her perspective of the guy that she likes."

"What if he's already a total douchebag?"

"Then get her to see the douchebag traits of his."

"What if she likes them?"

"Then kill him and help her get over the tragedy."

"What if he's my teammate?"

Anko gave Naruto a very serious look. "You know what? Somehow I don't think that this is still a hypothetical question about how to seduce a random girl in the middle of a foreign country."

Naruto's silence spoke for him.

She sighed. "Okay kid, I'll bite. Who is she?"

Naruto hesitated for a second before saying "Sakura Haruno. She's my teammate."

"And she likes your other teammate, who's a complete douche to her."

"Not her specifically. He's just a douche to everyone in general. I guess that he kind of has the right to be a douche, but that still doesn't mean that he should be one."

"This is the last Uchiha?"

He nodded.

She took a deep breath before continuing. "Listen kid, I don't know you very well. But you seem nice enough. So I'm going to tell you one thing about your situation with her."

He looked up to her with hope in his eyes.

"Forget about her."

The hope was dashed immediately.

"No matter how much of a master at seducing someone you are, that won't amount to anything if you want to start a serious relationship with her. You remember how I told you that you're supposed to learn her interests and play off of them to get her attention?"

He nodded.

"Well that only works with seduction because on a base level, you are trying to be someone who you aren't to trick someone. Trying to start a relationship on a base of lies will lead to a relationship that'll fall apart."

Naruto stewed in a long and heavy silence while he deliberated on what to say to his new teacher next. Anko let him be, knowing that he was trying to say something, but that he just didn't know how to say it right. Finally, he said "I don't care about that. My name is Naruto Uzumaki. I don't give up. I'll meet my goals. I'll get Sakura to see how much of a great guy I am. And I'll become hokage! Because I'm Naruto Uzumaki and that's just the kind of guy I am."

Anko looked down on him with a little bit of surprise. "Huh? So you're going to completely disregard my suggestion?" she asked with a dangerous looking smile on her face.

Naruto looked at her fearfully.

The special jonin laughed a bit. "You know what kid? I think I like you."

"So you'll still help me?"

"I guess. It might be interesting to see how this all pans out. I am going to teach you 4 things to get you good at seduction. 1.) Collection of information on the target. 2.) Successful confrontation of the target. 3.) Properly asking the target out on a date. 4.) Being a suave and charming person on the date. Today, we are going to verbally run down each and every aspect of those four targets. Tomorrow, you will practice all that you learned today on me while you are under a Transformation. After all, we can't have you trying to seduce some random kunoichi off the sides of the street. If you're found out, you could be tried for emotional injuries."

"Okay. Got it."

Anko smirked. This might be fun.

**As always, read and review. It really helps me out : ) **

**Have a gentlemanly day. **


	4. a new thing to consider

Chapter 4

"_For information gathering, you have a few options. You can eavesdrop on the person in question or their close friends to find out information. You can break into their domicile and go through their stuff to find out interests. And you can follow them around town to find out their day patterns."_

"_That sounds like something someone would do over a few weeks. Not a morning."_

"_You're right. We're operating on a limited time schedule, so I'll give you a few hints. I am good friends with Kurenai Yuhi and Genma Shiranui."_

"_Anything else?"_

"_You can't use dango or T&amp;I to try and seduce me tomorrow. Find out something new, then use it on me."_

"_Got it."_

00000000

"Are you Kurenai Yuhi?"

"Yes, who are you?" Kurenai asked the stranger that was confronting her. They were situated in a breakfast bar where Kurenai was hoping to get some brunch with Asuma. Asuma had yet to arrive, so Kurenai was left alone until she was accosted by this unknown individual

"My name is Kazama Arashi. Anko Mitarashi mentioned that she was good friends with you."

Kurenai narrowed her eyes at him. He didn't look suspicious, just a kid in his late teens, but anyone who wanted something to do with Anko was usually up to no good. "That is correct. Do you need something from her?"

He scratched the back of his head nervously. "Well, information mostly."

Kurenai adopted an irritated look. So there was another one of these pricks. Kurenai thought that they had all lost interest at that point. "Look, she's not a danger to Konoha. She's not a sleeper agent. And she is most certainly is not secretly plotting something with Orochimaru."

Kazama waved his arms in front of him in denial. "No no. it's not like that. I just want to know what she likes... that sounds even more suspicious doesn't it?"

Kurenai nodded, still with an annoyed look on her face.

"Look, I just uhh… I just met her a few days ago and I kind of like her. I want to ask her out, but I don't know what she likes. I'm not really one for stalking people around town, so I was hoping that you'd give me some advice on her."

Kurenai stared at him unsurely. He seemed genuine, but Kurenai didn't think it was too wise to lend out information of her friends away to strangers. So she decided to test him to make sure of his intentions. "What do you like about her?" she asked. His response would dictate whether or not she would give away any of her interests.

He adopted a far away and dreamy look. "Her smile, mostly."

"Her smile?" Kurenai asked unbelievingly. Anko didn't smile. She smirked in amusement.

He seemed to note her concerns. "Not that weird smirking thing she does. Her smile. Her _real_ smile… It's… beautiful." He replied dreamily.

Kurenai's expression softened. So he was just a love-struck, nervous teenager after all. "You really just want to ask her out? Nothing else?"

"Nothing." He said seriously.

Perhaps Anko would benefit from dating someone like this. People who acted like Kazama don't come around often, and it could have a calming effect on Anko's personality. "Okay, I'll help you out. But I won't give away anything other than the fact that she enjoys performing tea ceremonies."

Kazama beamed at her with a wide smile. "Thanks so much." He said, moving away from the breakfast bar and Kurenai.

"Wait." She called out to him.

He turned around to face her.

"If you hurt her, I'll make you wish you were dead."

Kazama didn't look perturbed in the slightest. "Don't worry, I don't plan on it." he replied cheekily before once more turning around and exiting the building.

'He seems like a sweet guy. I hope that he and Anko hit it off.'

Unknown to her, once Kazama was out of her line of sight, he poofed away into a puff of smoke.

00000000

Naruto stopped what he was doing to process the information that the clone got from Kurenai.

'She's into performing tea ceremonies? Weird.' Naruto was holed up in his apartment acting like a hub of information on all the clones that he had to keep track of.

Naruto dispelled the clone that was looking for Genma. It hadn't gotten really far at all.

There was a loud knocking on his front door which diverted his attention away from the mission at hand. "NARUTO. OPEN UP" Sakura's voice shouted from outside his door.

He quickly went to unlock and open the door to find a very pissed off Sakura standing in front of him. "Where were you?" she hissed out at him.

"Oh. I didn't send a shadow clone to tell you guys that I'd be taking a mission with my other sensei today, did I?" Naruto said in realization.

"Nope." She ground out. "Me and Sasuke were waiting forever for you to show up."

"I'm sorry. Is there an important mission that we're being assigned on?"

She sighed into the palm of her hand. "No. Kakashi is still on that mission so he sent one of his dogs to inform us of that. We waited for you to show up so we could tell you too. But you never came." She said vindictively.

"Again, I'm really sorry. But I'm kind of busy with the mission right now."

"You're _on_ the mission? Right now?"

"Yeah. Now if you'd please…" Naruto trailed off, trying to get her to leave him to his seduction. Time was of the essence after all.

"What mission?"

"It's a secret and I need to get back to it."

"Can I watch?"

"Don't you have to go to the hospital to get some medical training?"

"I'm scheduled for this afternoon."

"Why don't you ask Sasuke out on a date?"

"Already did. He turned me down."

"I'm very sorry that he turned you down, but I need to get back to the mission now. Goodbye." Naruto tried to close the door, but Sakura blocked it with her foot.

"Is it a training mission?" She asked innocently. Smirking inwardly.

Naruto took a deep breath before answering her. "You aren't going to leave, are you?" The blond didn't really want his love interest to know about what he was learning.

"Heh. Nope. Consider it payback for not telling me and Sasuke where you were."

Naruto relented. "Okay, fine. You can watch. But it's going to be boring for you."

"I don't care." Naruto opened the door for her and led her inside.

Sakura looked around with a little bit on confusion on her brow. "It's so clean." She whispered.

"Uh-huh. I did some spring cleaning." Naruto spawned two shadow clones.

"You." He pointed to the first one. "Go to the library and find out anything and everything about what a tea ceremony is. You." He pointed to the second one. "Follow him to find out what you need to do it, then buy all the materials available. Here's some money for it." Naruto told the clones, handing the second one no small amount of money. They immediately ran out the door to accomplish their tasks.

"Your special training with Anko is tea ceremonies?" Sakura asked incredulously.

"No. That's just a part of it."

"Well what is your training?"

"It's uuhhh…" Telling Sakura that was training in seduction probably wasn't the best of things to do. "Learning how to date." He said with a wince. That sounded like the weirdest thing ever.

"Learning how to date." She parroted with a deadpan. "Your super special training with your female sensei is learning how to date girls. This is the reason why you made me and Sasuke wait for an hour at mission assignment?"

"Well it's not just learning how to date. It's learning how to date other girls from foreign countries in order to obtain information from them by using their infatuation with me against them." Naruto said very quickly

"So… like… seduction?"

"If you want to call it that." Naruto said, relieved that Sakura came to that conclusion on her own.

"Why are you learning seduction? That isn't very useful."

"It can be useful."

"Well… I guess, if you use it correctly. But you don't really seem like the kind of person to do that."

"To seduce?"

"Yeah. Earning someone's trust only to break it immediately. I know that it could be used to get critical information to save the lives of our teammates and that's a good thing. You just… don't seem like the kind of person to do that."

"I have my reasons." Naruto said simply. He, in truth, did not want to do that. Even if they were the enemy, making a bond with someone and breaking it immediately did not sound appealing to him in the slightest. The only reason that Naruto wanted to do this was so he could get the Romantic at Heart merit and find out how he could get Sakura romantically interested in him. Everything else was just a means to do so. Although learning how to properly ask someone out on a date and learning how to maintain a date was also very handy information.

"Erm, sure." Sakura said unsurely. "So what is this mission about exactly?"

"Well first I have to obtain information about her."

"How?"

"Eavesdrop. Talk to her friends. Go through her stuff-"

"So like stalking?"

"Yes. I've already got the information that I need, the only thing that's left is for me to learn about her interest, which is performing tea ceremonies, and keeping track of her location, which is being done by using a liberal fuck-ton of shadow clones."

"Who is it that you're seducing?"

"My sensei."

"Okay, what then?"

"Then I casually bump into her on the street and somehow get her to notice how much of a tea ceremony connoisseur I am. Then we talk a bit and I ask her out on a date to get coffee or something."

"This is… weird."

"I know. Now the only thing left for me to do is to wait for the shadow clones that I just sent to get the items and information I need."

"You sound… prepared for this. How long have you been practicing?"

"After I left yesterday she drilled me on how to do every aspect of seduction for a grand total of 7 hours. This is just testing me on how well I can use that information."

"7 hours? How much stuff did you need to know that you trained for 7 hours?"

"Other than how to do each step, I had to memorize lines that would be useful to 'court' someone. Different ways to ask her out on a date, different questions to ask her on said date, different ways to imply that you are interested in going on another date, subtle ways to bring up the information that you are trying to extract."

"What information?"

"For now, it's just some bogus stuff about the hokage."

"When are you going to leave?"

"As soon as my clone at the library pops and I get my tea ceremony gear."

00000000

"_There are more than a few ways to get a girl to notice you. You could do something that makes you stand out from the crowd of other eligible bachelors, or you could do something that makes her think that the two of you have something in common. Do you want to tell me why the first one doesn't always work?"_

"_Because… not all attention is good attention?"_

"_Good boy. You're learning. It's more effective to go with the latter option because if you do something that the other person likes, you'll naturally gravitate towards each other even if this wasn't a seduction. Kind of like how kids instinctually organize themselves into different social groups based on their likes and dislikes. If you manage to call attention to the fact that you two have something in common, more often than not, she'll confront you about it and make conversation."_

"_But what are you going to do?"_

"_What do you mean?"_

"_Even if you give me the benefit of the doubt tomorrow, you'll still know that someone is intentionally going to try and draw attention to something that you like. How do I know that you'll act the way you'd act if you didn't know that someone was trying to seduce you."_

"_Tomorrow's exercise is meant to determine your level, not mine. If you do the right thing, I'll approach you. If you do the wrong thing, I won't."_

00000000

"Ahhh!" there was a large clanging of various tea making implements as they struck the floor of the dango restaurant.

"Hey! Watch were you're go…ing." Anko looked on in shock at the various items that were on the floor and at the man who was busy apologizing profusely and doing his best to pick them all up.

"I am so sorry. I don't know what happened. I just-"

"It's fine." She up from her booth to help pick up the tea making tools that littered the floor.

A tea whisk, a tea scoop, a chakin, a tea bowl. Yup, instruments for a tea ceremony. How did he hear about her enjoyment of tea ceremonies? The only person she'd told that to was Kurenai. There was also nothing laying around her apartment that could denote her affection of the ceremony. He shouldn't have been able to find out.

Once they got all the items back into the bag that he dropped, she asked "You a big fan of tea ceremonies?"

"Huh? Oh, I used to not be. My kid sister got me into them and their surprisingly enjoyable." He said with a smile.

"What's your favorite, thin tea or thick tea?"

"I personally prefer thick tea, but I like both. Why? Do you like them too?"

"The tea ceremonies? I'm all about them."

"Really? They're-"

"Ahem." And old man interrupted. He was trying to get past them, but they were blocking the way.

"Oh, ummm." The young man said nervously, not knowing what to do.

Anko sat down at the booth. "Come on, sit down."

He did as was asked, but still looked a little nervous. "Are you… waiting for anyone? I wouldn't want to be a bother."

"Oh it's fine. My name's Anko, what's yours?"

"Kazama."

She looked him up and down. In a word, he was non-descript. Average height, nice build, good features, young body. A nice, average guy. "Kazama. I like that name. So what do you like about tea ceremonies?"

He sighed wistfully. "I don't know. They're just… fun. I don't know how else to explain it. I like them. How about you?"

"I like… their pageantry. Their elegance. Their formalities. I don't know why I like those things, but they really call out to me."

"Oh really?"

"You sound surprised."

"I guess that I didn't think a trained shinobi would be into those types of things."

"Us shinobi are people too you know."

"Oh I know. Don't worry. In fact, I trained in the academy when I was younger."

"What happened?"

"Eehhh… you know the old story. My family fell on hard times. I had to help out in the shop. Couldn't be a ninja like I wanted to be"

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I like the life I have. But I've always wondered what it would be like if I was able to keep on attending the academy and become a shinobi."

"It's not all fun and games you know."

"I know. But it still seems so liberating. Being able to pick your own time table. Travel the world. Get lots of money for doing high ranked mission."

She laughed a little bit. "Yeah, I guess it is pretty cool. And if anyone talks to you that you don't like, you can just pick up a knife and threaten them away."

He laughed at her joke. Not overtly so, but enough to show that he derived genuine amusement from it. When he finished, Kazama said "I know that is kind of sudden… but would you like to get dinner sometime?"

"I'll have to check my schedule. You free anytime this week?"

"I'm kind of on a tight schedule on the moment. Maybe tonight?"

She seemingly lost interest in the train of conversation in favor of stretching all the kinks out of her body. He seemed confused by this sudden, lethargic action, but made no mention of it

"Take off the transformation." She ordered once she had finished the stretching.

Kazama's expression went from surprised to downtrodden in just a few seconds. With a poof, Naruto sat in the place that Kazama used to occupy. "Did I do something wrong?" he asked.

"Nope. In fact, you did everything right. I don't need to see anymore."

"Does that mean that… I'm good?"

"Yup. If you need to go into a foreign country and need get a girl to make and retain an emotional bond with you in an effort to divulge secrets, you'll do just fine."

"But I didn't even get to the point where I ask you about the secret."

"Don't have to. You're a pretty good actor with good spying jutsu and you're able to think up things on the fly. You're golden for it."

"Thanks sensei. Still, it kind of feels like 7 hours of memorization and drilling are going to waste."

"They aren't going to waste. You have them locked in your head. This exercise was meant to see if you could use the information given to you and you demonstrated that you could. There's no more need to go on."

"I guess that makes sense."

"Of course it does. I'm your sensei. So what do you want to work on now? You said something about trap detection?"

"Yup."

"Now _that's_ a good skill to learn."

"And seduction isn't?"

"Trap detection is more likely to save your life in the field."

"And yet, you still lectured me for 7 hours on the ins and outs of seduction."

"If I'm going to teach something, I'm going to teach it well."

"Yeah, thanks for that by the way. _Really_, thank you."

"For teaching you seduction? Did you really want to learn it that bad?"

"Not seduction specifically. You're the first person to actually try and teach me seriously. And I'm just… thanks. Seriously, thanks."

Anko reached over and tussled the blonde's hair. "Don't worry about it kid. Now, for you to learn about trap detection, I have to make some traps first. That means that we won't be able to work on it this afternoon."

"That's fine. I have to check up on some things anyway."

"Cool. Will you be able to get there at noon tomorrow?"

"Uh-huh. Kakashi's on a mission right now, so I have some free time."

The snake jonin grabbed the remainder of her dango and smirked at him. "See ya then." After saying that she vanished in a puff of smoke.

00000000

Naruto fell on top of his bed and brought out his book. He was close to getting the Romantic at Heart perk. The only thing left to do was to level up once more and get that merit point. Opening it up to the front page, it read:

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: 'Seduce' Anko 3000 exp, +10 seduction, increased influence with Anko._

Naruto closed the achievement window to look at his base stats

_Naruto Uzumaki: EXP: 126/7000 level-ups available._

_Level: 5_

_Chakra: 51_

_Chakra Control: 21_

_Wisdom: 41_

_Intelligence: 13_

_Charisma: 51_

_Flexibility: 11_

_Speed: 13_

_Strength: 11_

_Endurance: 41_

Naruto glanced at the level in slight confusion. Where did all the experience come from?

A clone popped. Naruto winced and began to sort out the influx of information. It was a 'job clone', apparently it finished a rather lucrative D-rank mission and got some money and experience for it. Naruto looked back down at the base stats

_Naruto Uzumaki: EXP: 726/7000 level-ups available._

_Level: 5_

_Chakra: 51_

_Chakra Control: 21_

_Wisdom: 41_

_Intelligence: 13_

_Charisma: 51_

_Flexibility: 11_

_Speed: 13_

_Strength: 11_

_Endurance: 41_

Some of the jobs give experience? Shouldn't he instinctually know that? Weird. But at least this meant that he could get the Romantic at Heart merit now. Tapping on the level-up, some more text popped up:

_You are now level 6: you have gained +5 base stat modifiers, +22 attribute modifiers, and +1 merit point._

Naruto looked in consideration at his stats before putting all five base modifiers into his strength, raising it up to 16, and hitting confirm.

All of his muscles locked up suddenly and with no forewarning. He felt them flexing out of control for several, very long and uncomfortable seconds. When it was over, he got up from his bed to test out his new body.

Naruto turned and stretched his self out a bit. Looking at his arm, he had indeed obtained more muscle mass in that particular area, meaning that he could probably lift heavier things. Naruto patted down his torso and felt a little bit more muscle underneath the skin as well. Heh, cool.

Naruto went to the attribute sections next to check on his seduction level.

_Seduction 35/50_

So that meant that he definitely had enough seduction to unlock Romantic at Heart. But he had 22 more points to place and he didn't know where to place them. The blond could put the rest into the four miscellaneous sections that he had increased two nights before, but he had done that mostly so that the training with Anko in the beginning wouldn't be as hard. Aside from the strength stat, he hadn't increased any of his combat abilities. So he decided that it would probably make sense to put it in Taijutsu.

He decided to bring his Taijutsu form from a 13/200 to a 35/200. With that done, he headed over to the merit section to buy the Romantic at Heart perk.

'Now, let's see what Sakura likes.'

_Sakura Haruno:_

_What (Sakura) thinks about you: annoying, kind of weird._

_Sakura has (no) romantic feelings for you. She is (not) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: men who listen to me, men who are nice, men who enjoy the same things that I do, men who are strong and can take care of me, men who respect me._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown._

Naruto sweatdropped. 'Other than being strong, Sasuke is the exact opposite of what she likes.' He shook his head in confusion. 'Well, I have a merit that cost me 7 hours of lecturing and half a seduction mission. Might as well use it. I wonder what Anko likes. I could totally tease her about it tomorrow.'

_Anko Mitarashi:_

_What (Anko) thinks about you: interesting, sincere, hard-working,_

_Anko has (little) romantic feelings for you. She is (not) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: men who like for who I am instead of what I am, men who can fight for themselves, men who are nice, men who are capable of forming their own opinions, men who are interesting._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: mostly unknown_

'Well, I am officially confused. HOW IS IT THAT ANKO HAS MORE ROMANTIC FEELINGS FOR ME THAN SAKURA?!' Naruto mentally screamed. '*mental sigh* well, she has no interest in starting a relationship, so I guess that it shouldn't affect anything very much, which is good.'

Naruto got up from bed and checked out his 'property poster'. Nothing had changed except for the fact that his money had increased to $3012; not enough to buy the apartment that was next to him.

It was early afternoon and Naruto didn't have much to do. 'Maybe I can practice throwing kunai?' Naruto bent over to grab his ninja bag, only to feel some things that were lumpy and weird from its outside. He reached in to grab the unknown objects and brought out two new things. A small pamphlet and what looked like a binder.

Naruto groaned. 'More things?' he cracked open the binder first. The cover page read:

_Material goods and wealth proliferation._

_*This binder contains all of your properties, their values, their management, their profit, and so on. It also details all properties that are for sale in Konoha and the Elemental Stock Exchange.*_

He flipped over to the next page, but it read:

_You have no items or extraneous properties of interest or value._

'Well isn't that insulting.' Naruto flipped over to the next page and was thoroughly confused once more. On it was a whole lot of line graphs that had strange acronyms and percent values that changed every couple of seconds. There wasn't even an explanation bubble, it just expected that Naruto already knew this.

He tossed the binder to the side. 'I'm not going to need that for a while.'

Opening up the pamphlet, it read:

_Quest log_

_*Quests are different from missions in that they can only be performed once and that they are all unique. They also usually have some sort of reward that will help you out later on. The reward will also only be given if it is initiated and done by you. No lumping the quest on another person or thing capable of doing so*_

'Really? Cool! Wait, does this mean that I can't use shadow clones?' Naruto flipped to the few pages. There were only a few of them at the moment.

_Quest: teach Konohamaru corps how to do the substitution jutsu._

_Reward: +10 teaching skill, vastly increased influence with the Konohamaru corps._

_Quest: Help Genma to find his favorite senbon._

_Reward: new skill: senbon jutsu, basic scroll on senbon jutsu._

_Quest: Help Ino man her family store_

_Reward: +10 gardening, +10 Poison identification and synthesizing, +10 medicinal identification and synthesizing, basic medical and poison plants._

_Quest: Someone has stolen the Hokage's porn stache, bring the man to justice!_

_Reward: $1000 dollars, plain bo staff, basic scroll on bojutsu._

Naruto sweatdropped. 'Old man… really? I get that you're a perv, but seriously?'

Well now what? It sounded like he couldn't use shadow clones to do any of them, so he has to do them himself. If any of the quests take any amount of significant time to accomplish then it could interfere with his training with Anko.

He did have the afternoon however. He could probably do at least one of them by then. Naruto didn't know what bojutsu was, so he passed on that; nor did he have any actual gardening skills, or any idea of how to take care of plants; and it didn't sound like training the Konohamaru corps gave him anything good (he would probably do it at some point, because he's a good person like that). Senbon jutsu sounded cool. Haku used them and nearly won on the battle of the bridge.

Naruto tapped on Genma's mission. Another text box popped up and told him that the quest could only be accepted in training ground 5.

Naruto pocketed the pamphlet and walked out the door in the direction of training ground 5.

00000000

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

Kurenai walked to her door sedately to answer it.

"Hey Crimson-chan. Mind if I come in for a bit?" Anko asked with a creepily smiling visage upon her face. That in itself wasn't all too unnatural for Anko, but her sickly sweet voice probably meant that she was pissed off about something.

"Oh. Umm sure?" Anko promptly walked inside and fell on the sofa, never ceasing that smile of hers. She didn't say anything after that, which creeped Kurenai out something fierce.

Kurenai walked over and sat on the chair opposite Anko. "Is there something wrong?" she ventured.

"Hmmm… let me see… quick question, did you perhaps tell anyone about my love of tea ceremonies?"

Oh shit. That wasn't good. "There was this one guy, but he seemed sweet. Did you turn him down?"

Anko laughed a little. "Kurenai, I haven't told you this, because it's a rather recent event. But I'm teaching a genin."

Kurenai's eyes widened in surprise "You took on an apprentice?"

"Nope, just a kid that I'm teaching what I know to."

"So an apprentice?"

"A student."

"Okay, what does this have to do with anything?"

"The first thing that he suggested to learn was seduction."

"And what does… oohhhh." Kurenai said in realization.

"Yup. In a training exercise, I told him to mock seduce me and all he had to do was walk right up to you and ask for the ammunition."

"But he seemed… he just seemed so genuine." Kurenai said for an excuse.

"Yup. Apparently he's a natural at it. I just want to clarify that you are to tell NO ONE about my hobby."

"Okay. I've got it. I'm sorry. So who're you teaching?"

"Naruto Uzumaki."

"The container of the Kyuubi?"

"That's the one."

"Huh. So he did find a teacher."

"What do you mean?"

"He was asking around the jonin to see if any of them would teach him. But from what I've heard, no one accepted him."

"Even you?"

"I'm busy with my own squad at the moment. I can't spare any time for other students."

"That's a shame. He's actually a pretty good student. But that's enough of that. How's it going with you and Asuma?" Anko asked with a perverted leer.

"Nothing new, he's distant and hard to get a hold of. What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Any new romantic conquests?"

"Nope. You know me, I only try to start a relationship with people I can stand. And I don't stand many people."

"The only people that you try with are people who are mentally and emotionally scarred. Remember your 'date' with Kakashi?"

Anko growled a little bit at the mention of him name. "Yeah, I remember. So who do _you_ recommend?"

"Genma."

"Stop trying to make that happen. It's not going to happen."

"But you two would look so sweet together."

"No we wouldn't. I can only see him as a friend and he can only see me as a friend. Don't you even remember that 'get-together' that _you_ tried to orchestrate?"

"That was when you were genin. You're all grown up now."

"That was before-!" Anko cut herself off midsentence.

Kurenai was rendered slightly speechless. "Look, Anko. I'm sorry-"

"It's fine." Anko interrupted. "Just… just don't tell anyone about the tea ceremony thing. Okay?" with that, Anko got up and made to the door.

"Anko-" the slamming of her front door cut Kurenai off before she could even start.

'She's still sensitive about it I guess.'

**As always, have a gentlemanly day.**


	5. a few changes to the norm

Chapter 5

8:30 A.M.

_Quest: Help Ino man her family store_

_Reward: +10 gardening, +10 Poison identification and synthesizing, +10 medicinal identification and synthesizing, basic medical and poison plants._

Naruto was at the cash register helping to scan the items, accept the money, take out the correct change, and wish the customer a happy day. It was monotonous work that helped the time to pass by quickly.

He didn't know why the store was so packed full of men and women trying to buy either their choice of flowers, or flowers that were recommended for them by the resident Yamanaka, Ino. This reason is why she needed help running the store. She couldn't ring people up for their flowers and help to suggest flowers to others in unique situations at the same time. Isn't it just so lucky that the resident loud-mouthed, impatient, unpredictable Uzumaki Naruto was there to help her out?

Luckily she was desperate enough to accept help from anyone at the time. Soon enough though, (two hours to be exact) the amount of people entering the store trickled to a crawl and Naruto was sitting bored behind a cash register.

When it was only him and Ino sitting in the room quietly, she decided to speak up. "Thanks Naruto, you wouldn't believe how busy it is today, or how busy it was yesterday."

"Yeah, don't worry. I'm not usually the type to just not help out someone when they're in trouble."

"Still, you were behind that register for like two hours. You should probably receive pay for work rendered."

"Seriously, I'm fine."

"But isn't this cutting in your training time with your sensei, Anko?"

"She said to report in at noon, so- Wait. How do you know that I'm being taught by her?"

"Sakura came by my place last night to talk. By the way, what's up with you taking seduction classes?"

"She told you?!"

"Yeah, did you not want anyone to know?"

"It… would have been preferred."

"Oops, sorry." She went through the motions of zipping her lips. "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me. So come on, let the beans spill. Why're you taking seduction classes?"

"I'm not taking them anymore." Naruto said defensively.

"Not a good fit then? What am I talking about, of course it's not a good fit. You're Naruto. You don't do seduction."

"The reason that I'm not taking those classes anymore is because I don't have to."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Anko says that I'm good enough."

"Good enough for what?"

"Good enough for you to mind your own business."

She rose her hands up to torso level in defense. "Alright alright, I'm sorry. I probably stepped over the line huh?"

"No… I'm just scared that people are going to assume things if they hear that I took those lessons." Seriously, he really should have thought that decision through a little bit more.

"You shouldn't worry about that. If what you said is true, then even if people do find out, it should blow over soon. Oh wait! You're new teacher is Anko. You're going to be learning about poison stuff soon right?"

"Errr yeah. Do you know her?"

"She works in the intelligence area that my dad works in. Hold on, I'll be right back." Ino ran into the backroom to get something. After a fair bit of rummaging around, she brought out a couple of plants. One looked like a normal flower with a bell-like bulb shape with a few six-petal flower heads on the tops and sides of it, while the other looked like a normal fern. "These are Narcissus and the Lady Fern. Narcissus is fairly toxic when ingested, and the lady fern helps to sooth pain in small cuts and bruises when it's all mashed up. If you're learning under Anko, then you're learning with poisonous and medical plants. You should keep these. We have tons of them lying around in the back."

"Really? Awesome, this is great. Thanks Ino." Naruto said, gingerly lifting the plants from Ino's arms.

"Give the Narcissus a moderate amount of water each day and the Lady Fern a lot of water each day."

"Cool. Thanks for the help Ino. I'll be back tomorrow morning to see if you still need help."

"See ya then. Thanks again for the help."

A text box popped up in front of Naruto. _Quest completed: help Ino man her family store._

Naruto exited the store and handed the two plants to a shadow clone which he created, then went in the direction of the academy. Konohamaru and co. needed help with the Substitution jutsu, and as their boss, he felt it was his duty to inform them about it.

Yesterday he had found out that although quests have to be initiated and 'completed' by the original Naruto, clones could help out in the in-between. Granted, he only found that out after getting tired of scouring a training ground for a single, useless senbon and deciding that not getting the senbon skill was worth the risk of finding out if he could use shadow clones to help out with quests. 5 hours later, even with the help of shadow clones, he got the scroll and the skill from Genma. Naruto still didn't know if the mechanics of the game that he was in was affecting the real world, or if it was the other way around. But seeing as Ino decided that his reward was to be poisonous and medical plants due to his relationship with his sensei, he was leaning on the latter.

Currently, he had five clones working on jobs; one clone working on medical training, which was going swimmingly; one clone working on the senbon training; and one clone maintaining his house.

Naruto also had a problem. After using his merit point to get the Romantic at Heart merit, he was down an achievable goal. After scouring the merit section for other things that he could look forward to, he came to the conclusion that the vast majority of all of those points were useless.

It was full of things that he either had absolutely no use for, like the Broker's Guile, which gave him a significant boost in property management. Things that he had absolutely no ways of obtaining, like the Lighting Rod, which made him a complete badass and gave him complete control of the lightning element, but required that he had 200/200 lightning element manipulation. He still didn't know what elemental manipulation was! There were also the things that people would question about. Hey Naruto, how is it that you can now suddenly grow bones out of your body? Hey Naruto, how is it that you suddenly awakened the Sharingan in your eyes? Hey Naruto, how is it that you can shit gold now?

If Naruto was going to make any of those goals a reality, he was going to have to talk to the Third. Not a conversation that he was particularly looking forward to. Hey Gramps, guess what? Back in wave, my life got turned into a videogame. Now I can awaken the Sharingan if I want to.

Naruto respected and loved the Third like a grandfather, but he also knew that he was the leader of a legion of ninjas and would probably not believe that Naruto was who he said he was if he suddenly brought that thing out to light.

So Naruto was down to trying to level up to boost his base stats. But he wasn't even able to do that effectively! The book explained it that he would get experience from fighting. It's not like he can just walk down the street and challenge someone to a ninja duel. Those things just don't happen. So he was stuck trying to get experience the way that he suspected the game just threw in to give him a bone, by getting achievements and completing missions. The quests didn't even give experience, but they usually evened it out by rewarding him something that couldn't be valued with experience points; things like skills, or increased influence amongst the population's various individuals.

But that doesn't matter right now. Naruto had to concentrate on completing the quests at the moment.

10:45 A.M.

_Quest: teach Konohamaru corps how to do the substitution jutsu._

_Reward: +10 teaching skill, vastly increased influence with the Konohamaru corps._

"Yeah boss! You're the best! Thanks so much for helping us out." Konohamaru said excitedly with the rest of the corps behind him in their adulations.

"Don't worry about it too much. I'm just doing my duty as your boss." Naruto said with no small amount of pride in his voice. "Now… to start out… aha!" Naruto created a clone which immediately transformed into a small chair. "To start with the substitution jutsu, it's easier to first start out with a simple, unmoving object much like this one."

The corps nodded their heads in wonder.

"Now. To do the jutsu, you first have to do the handseals to collect and mold your chakra for you, then you have to reach your chakra out towards the object, then you have to release all the chakra that you've been storing in your body all in one go."

"I wanna go first!" Konohamaru said.

Naruto gestured to the chair. "When you're ready."

"Okay, okay. I've got this." Konohamaru started bouncing up and down while shaking his limbs back and forth in an effort to get psyched up. Once he reached maximum psych, he pulled his hands into the correct handseals and started to concentrate as hard as he could on the task. Soon there were small blue sparks that lit up around him, denoting intense chakra shaping going on.

"**Substitution"** Konohamaru shouted out as loud as he could.

Both he and the chair were still stuck in the same place as before.

"Rrrgg." Konohamaru growled out dismally.

"It helps if you imagine reaching out an arm made of chakra in the direction of the object and grabbing hold of it."

"I wanna try. I wanna try." Moegi said cheerfully.

"Remember, chakra arm."

"Yeah." Moegi said with a nod. She created the required handseals and scrunched her brow up really hard in concentration. Sparks of blue chakra began to form around her, but they moved at a far more languid pace than Konohamaru's.

"**Substitution"** Moegi said in a calm voice.

She had the same results that Konohamaru did, despite her efforts.

"Awww…" Moegi said disparately.

Naruto started to think about the reasons why they weren't getting this concepts very well. He had practically mimicked what the academy teachers had told him when he and the rest of his class were learning substitution. But then again, he grasped the concept of the substitution jutsu slightly faster than everyone in his class. What else could he tell them to help them out?

"Oh! One more thing. Try to concentrate on your chakra flow and stabilize it when you're reaching out. The problem might stem from the fact that you aren't using enough control." Naruto said with a smug look on his face. He remembered how Sakura had told him about the concentration of chakra thing back in wave to help him out with his exercise. It had helped exponentially back there, so it made sense that it would help here.

Udon was the next to step up to plate. Going through the handseals, he took far longer to release the chakra that he built up than the others. But it paid off in that when he did release, he disappeared in a puff of smoke and replaced the chair clone in its position. After realizing what he had done, the young boy began to jump up and down in joy.

"Great job Udon!" Naruto said ecstatically. "Now you two, try focusing your chakra more before letting go."

"Right!" they both cried out in mock salute.

After a few more failed attempts, they were all capable of doing the substitution after about 30 seconds of intense concentration.

"Remember guys, enemy shinobi aren't going to let you wait around for 30 seconds to do your escape jutsu. Being able to do the jutsu and being able to do the jutsu well enough to the point where it would be useful in battle are two very different things. So keep training with the jutsu."

"Right!" They all shouted, once more in mock salute.

_Quest Completed: teach Konohamaru corps how to do the substitution jutsu._

11:00

_Quest: Someone has stolen the Hokage's porn stach, bring the man to justice!_

_Reward: $1000 dollars, plain bo staff, basic scroll on bojutsu._

Naruto looked around the village proper intently. He didn't even know what he was looking for, but he guessed that he'd know it when he saw it. There was a flash of a man hurrying through the crowd with no tact at all. He was nondescript for the most part except for the fact that he was carrying a bundle of books under his arm.

It was a _large_ bundle of books.

Naruto sweatdropped. 'Gramps…'

Naruto jumped up from the rooftop and ran after the man on foot. He looked tired and nervous, nothing like a professional spy from another nation would be expected to act. Naruto created 5 shadow clones and surrounded him with no hope of him getting away. The man stopped directly in the middle of the surrounding of shadow clones and began to shake nervously.

"Yo, what's up? Is that perchance the porn stach of the-"

"YES. It is. Just take it. This has given me nothing but trouble all day long." The man handed it off to one of the clones and ran out of the circle, looking over his shoulder all the way.

Naruto sweatdropped. 'Well that was easier than I expected. Might as well deliver this to Gramps.'

000000000

"Look, I just need to drop this thing off on him."

"Well if you don't have a meeting, you won't be able to get inside." The secretary huffed at him with an irritated tone of voice.

"Is that right? So I can't deliver this stuff to him even though he's already here? Fascinating." Naruto said with an airy voice.

"HEY GRAMPS. I HAVE YOUR FUCKING PORN STACH. COME DOWN AND GET IT OR ELSE IT GOES TO THE FIRE!." Naruto belted out at the top of his lungs in the middle of the waiting room to see the hokage in administration.

An ANBU melted out of the shadows and wordlessly took the bundle from Naruto and handed him a bo staff, a small scroll, and a small bundle of $100 bills.

_Quest Completed: Someone has stolen the Hokage's porn stache, bring the man to justice!_

Naruto sweatdropped. 'This quest was weird.'

Naruto walked out administration and took out his Quest Log Pamphlet Thing to check off all the quests. There were two new ones.

_Quest: Hide Kiba_

_Reward: enormously increased influence with Kiba_

_Quest: Find Kiba_

_Reward: increased influence with Hana and Tsume Inuzuka._

'There are missions that go against each other? Okay, that's weird. So I guess that I can't take both of them. I don't know who Hana and Tsume are, so I guess that it's time to save the mutt.'

11:30

"I can't thank you enough man" Kiba said in a hushed tone of voice from Naruto's closet. He was nearly naked, only wearing a pair of boxers.

"Yeah, don't worry about it. Why are they chasing you anyways?" Naruto asked with wary eyes.

"There was a failure to communicate." Kiba said vaguely. Akamaru barked in agreement.

Naruto decided not to comment and began to shut the closet door. Just as it was about to close all the way, there was frantic knocking at the door. "Oh shit!" Kiba whispered.

Naruto opened up the closet and grabbed Akamaru roughly, then closed the door. "It's going to be fine!" Naruto yelled/whispered.

The knocking at the door intensified by the time that Naruto reached it. Opening it up got Naruto face to face with a teenage girl with an extremely irritated look on her face. She was wearing spandex shorts and a top that was covered by a partially zipped down ninja vest, she also had the Inuzuka defining characteristics of double fang marks on her cheeks and slightly pointed canines.

"Is Kiba here?" she asked gruffly.

"Uuuhh. No. Why? You looking for him?"

"His scent leads here."

Naruto drew attention to Akamaru, who was in his arms. "He shoved his dog on me, then took off."

She growled to herself. "I didn't think that he was so crafty as to split his scent on various paths."

"I wouldn't know about that. You want your dog back?" he said, pushing Akamaru forward, who did his best to squirm away from the enraged female.

"Akamaru is Kiba's dog. He's probably going to stop by soon to get him back though. If you'd do me a favor, when he does, knock him out or something and take him back to the Inuzuka compound."

"I… I don't know if I want to get involved in a clan dispute." Naruto said nervously.

"Well isn't it unfortunate that you did?" she said ominously before backing away from the door.

Naruto closed the door and walked to the half-open closet. Shoving Akamaru back to Kiba, Naruto said "You have two hours until I kick you out. Think up a plan or something, then leave. If you don't, I'm going to the Inuzuka compound to tell everyone where you are."

Kiba gave a thumbs up. "Cool."

_Quest Completed: Hide Kiba_

12:00

Forest of Death

_Sorry for the lack of notice kid, but I'm going to be on a mission for a few days._

_Lucky for you, I'm the best teacher in the whole goddamned world. I got you a few scrolls on trap setting and trap detection. Count yourself lucky, scrolls containing information on ninja techniques are hard to come by now a days and I just happened to have a friend who had a couple of these that I could borrow._

_I also set the forest chock full of some traps. Don't die._

_One last thing, if you tell anyone about how I like tea ceremonies, I will kill you._

_-Love, your awesome sensei._

Naruto dropped her scroll back where he picked it up and spawned a few clones. He handed off the bojutsu staff and scroll to one, and the scrolls containing the trap setting and detection to another few.

Looks like he had some more time to kill now that he didn't have access to Anko. His stomach grumbled loudly, reminding him that he hadn't had lunch yet. He'd figure out what to do after a few bowls at Ichiraku's.

12:15

_Random Encounter! Help Fu, Fujitsu, and Takkana find food_

_Reward: +20 Jinchuuriki jutsu control, +20 Jinchuuriki jutsu shape manipulation_

Naruto stopped in his tracks to stare at the pop up window that had come into being directly in front of him while he was walking down a crowded road. 'Who're Fu, Fujitsu, and Takkana? And why would helping them out give me better control over fuzzy-butt's chakra?'

Just as he finished that thought, there was a loud exclamation of hunger from directly behind him. "And I'm telling _you_ Takkana, I'm not eating Sushi." A voice that obviously belonged to a male rang out.

"Well it's a whole lot better than Katsudon." She replied belligerently. Naruto turned around to get a good look at them. The male, who he assumed was Fujitsu, was an average looking guy with glasses upon his head being the only thing that stood out. A female, who he assumed was Takkana, was as average looking as Fujitsu with a sash that contained vials of different fluids being the only object that stood out on her person. But there was another girl that was walking right behind them and remaining silent for the most part. Guessing that her name was Fu, she was dark skinned and wearing a white miniskirt with a white mid-cut halter top along with cut-off arm warmer sleeve things. There was a mesh weave covering her thighs and upper torso and she also had green hair and orange eyes. They all had the forehead protectors of a village that he hadn't seen before.

"Oi, you three. What are you doing here in Konoha?" Naruto said amicably, jumping into their conversation.

"Huh?" Fujitsu said distractedly. "Oh, we're here for the chunin exams."

"And we're hungry, but this guy won't man up and eat some sushi." Takkana said.

"It's disgusting." He retorted.

"Katsudon is what's disgusting."

"Katsudon is great!"

They continued to argue like that until Naruto had to interject again. "How about ramen?" he ventured. Getting them to eat at Ichiraku's would be like killing two birds with one stone.

They both shut their mouths in sync and slowly turned their heads to look at the other. "I could go for some ramen." Fujitsu stated.

"I don't see why not." Takkana said

"What about you?" Naruto asked Fu.

She clammed up and started to nervously murmur words incomprehensibly. Fujitsu and Takkana took notice of this and answered for her. "She'd love to." Fujitsu said.

Naruto nodded at this with an unsure expression on his face and bade them to follow him to the ramen place.

"I didn't know that Konoha shinobi were so hospitable." Fujitsu said in an attempt to make conversation.

"Oh yeah, we're all great here. Unless you meet up with a guy whose hair looks like a duck's ass, he's an asshole. Or a certain perverted scarecrow, he's useless for conversation. Or a couple of guys decked out fully in green, they're freaks. Or you meet up with a purple haired chick who loves dango, she's a psychopath. In fact, I think that I'm one of the very few sane people who live here. So count yourself lucky."

He chuckled somewhat nervously. "I'll keep that in mind. So what is this ramen place?"

"It's called Ichiraku's. Serves some of the best ramen around here. In fact I was on my way there when I bumped into you guys."

"Is it pricy?" Takkana asked.

"Not really."

They all continued their inane conversation up until they reached the small ramen stand. Ayame's and Teuchi's eyes widened in surprise at the face of their number one customer with his new friends. "Hey Naruto, did you bring some new customers?" Ayame asked cheerfully.

"Yup. This is Fujitsu, Takkana, and Fu." he gestured to each in turn.

"Well what can I get for you guys?" Teuchi asked amiably.

"Miso ramen" Naruto answered.

"Seafood ramen." Takkana answered.

"Uhhhh… chicken ramen." Fujitsu said.

"…Miso ramen." Fu stated after a little bit of deliberation

"I'll get right on it." Teuchi said, getting going on the noodles and broth.

Fujitsu and Takkana turned to each other and started conversing in somewhat argumentative tones. From his walk to Ichiraku, he came to the conclusion that they weren't aggressive, belligerent people. They just liked arguing with each other. It was kind of like seeing a married couple go back and forth. It could go on for hours at a time or seconds, but it didn't really matter because there was no actual aggression behind their words.

Deciding to leave them to their devices, he turned to Fu for conversation. "So what do you think of Konoha?" he asked.

"It's… big." She said slowly.

"Sure is. Your village isn't very large?"

"Nope. Not on this level. Not even close."

Naruto stared directly at her eyes, which unnerved her slightly. "Are you wearing contacts?" he asked.

"Uhhh… no. My orange eyes are genetic, I've been told."

"Been told?"

"Yeah, I'm an orphan." She said with an even tone of voice.

"Oh really? I'm an orphan too." Naruto said with a foxy grin.

"Seriously? What happened to them?"

"They died in the Kyuubi attack. What about yours?"

"They died in the Nanabi attack."

There was a sudden rise in the pitch of Takkana's and Fujitsu's argument, which died down quickly. "What's up with those two?" Naruto asked in a hushed tone.

She smirked in slight amusement. "They've always been like that. There's a common joke running around our village that those two are destined to get married and give each other aneurisms on their honeymoon." Naruto chuckled. He could definitely see that happening.

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Do you have any friends like that?"

She brushed some stray strands of hair out of her eyes. "No, not really. People in my village don't really like me."

"Why not? You seem pretty cool."

Fu clammed up a little bit. "I, uhh… I can't tell you."

Well that was a worrying way of phrasing a remark. "Why not?"

"Because, uhmmm… I can't. But it's not something that's my fault." She said quickly.

After a few seconds of intense thinking, Naruto gave her the biggest smile that he had. Her situation sounded remarkably similar to his after all. He was fairly certain that she wasn't of any serious threat, and as such, didn't feel like it was a good idea to treat her as such. "It's fine if you don't want to tell me. I'm just a foreign shinobi in a big village. If fact, it'd be weird if you did want to tell me."

She smiled back at him. She opened her mouth to talk some more, but was interrupted by the arrival of her order.

"Eat up." Ayame said with a smile

_Random Encounter! Completed: Help Fu, Fujitsu, and Takkana find food._

00000000

1:00

_Random Encounter! Help Onoki get to kage administration._

_Reward: +5 politics, +10 elemental fire manipulation, +10 earth manipulation, +10 wind manipulation._

There was a large crowd gathering around a strange group of people. The group of people consisted of an androgynous teen, a large man with childish features and a big head, a large man with masculine features and a prominent jaw, and a small, elderly man who was crouching in pain and not capable of moving.

"See gramps, this is what happens when you try to walk around like that." The Andro-teen said chidingly.

"Kurotsuchi, don't tease your grandfather." The man with the prominent jaw remarked.

"I don't need my son to defend me." The old man said from the ground. Then he gasped in pain as he tried to (unsuccessfully) get up from his position on the ground.

Naruto quickly walked up to the motley crew. "Do you need help?" he asked in concern.

The old man tried to wave Naruto away with the excuse of "I don't need any of your help kid," even though he was still having trouble even standing at that point.

Naruto's eyes slanted in annoyance. After doing a few handseals, his hands lit up with the Mystical Palm technique. Naruto knelt down behind the stubborn elderly and placed his palms in the middle of his back.

"What are you doing brat!" the old man said, trying to brush him off.

"I'm fucking healing you. Now shut up and take it with dignity you old fart!" Naruto said with a pissed off tone.

Onoki was so shocked at the attitude and tone of voice that Naruto held, that he didn't bother saying anything else. The same went for the rest of the three compatriots who were with him.

Naruto bit his lip. "Damnit." The Mystical Palm technique only went as far as the user was able to take it. Meaning that even with his large amounts of studying and hands-on training back at the hospital, he wasn't capable of setting a man's back straight using only chakra. The most he could do was to nullify the pain.

"Aaaaahhh…" Onoki sighed in relief at the contact of the medical chakra on his back. Once Naruto did all that he could do, he stood up and addressed him "I'm not able to set your back right, so you still won't be able to walk. I suggest that you see an actual chiropractor as opposed to a student who's practicing."

"I never asked to see you." He said vindictively.

Naruto quirked his eyebrow. "Oh really? Really now? Are you saying that you want me to unblock your nerve endings? Because blocking nerve endings in a particular area is hard and I don't think that you appreciate it very much."

Onoki said nothing.

"Where were you headed?" Naruto asked him.

"Administration." The man with the prominent jaw said. "Could you point us the way."

Naruto did him one better and spawned a clone, who placed the quarreling old man upon his back for transportation. "I don't need a trolley!" the old man shouted at the original.

"I don't know what a trolley is, but somehow I feel like you really do need it." Naruto said, starting to walk away.

Kurotsuchi and Akatsuchi looked on in wonder at the kid who probably has the largest balls in the world to talk to the Tsuchikage like that. "Did that just happen?" Kurotsuchi asked her imposing opposite.

"…I think it did." Akatsuchi replied.

The andro-teen smirked and laughed a bit. "I can't believe it."

"Oi, you two. Get over here." Kitsuchi yelled back at them.

Onoki grumbled indistinctly in their general direction, still in a bad mood at being hefted around like luggage.

_Random Encounter! Completed: Help Onoki get to kage administration._

00000000

1:30

_Random Encounter! Find Bee_

_Reward: +20 Jinchuuriki jutsu control, +20 Jinchuuriki jutsu shape manipulation_

'What is up with all of these random encounters? And who's Bee?'

"Hey you." A voice languidly called to him. Naruto turned to face a dark-skinned kid his age who was wearing the standard Kumo fatigues and was sucking on a lollipop. "Have you seen a big black guy who was wearing sunglasses come around here? Yellow-white dreadlocks, only talks in rhymes, has a tattoo of two bison horns on his face."

Naruto sighed and created 20 shadow clones. "Fan out." Naruto said simply to them.

Omoi looked at the dispersing shadow clones nervously. "What's uhhh… what's going on with the clones?"

"Once one of them finds your sensei, it'll dispel and I'll know where it is."

Omoi looked uncomfortable at the notion. "You don't have to do that. I was just wondering if you've seen him."

"I haven't, but I will soon." Naruto said to him. "You here for the chunin exams too?"

Omoi nodded. "Mmhmm. Once we got here, my sensei took off. So now me and my team are looking for him."

"Are the chunin exams this big of a deal? It's still like 5 days away."

"Yeah… they usually are, but apparently this one's going to be different."

"Do you know how?"

"Nope. The only thing I know is that's supposed to be some experiment."

_Random Encounter! Completed: Find Bee._

"He's at a karaoke bar about 5 blocks away that way." Naruto said suddenly, pointing to the direction where Bee was. Omoi nodded and took off in that direction.

00000000

6:00

Naruto closed the door to his apartment behind him. No more quests to complete. No more random encounters to his knowledge. Just rest.

Something caught the corner of his eye. He looked at his ninja bag that was resting in the corner. It was bulging at the seams with what appeared to be a huge cookbook of some kind. Naruto groaned. 'I thought I was done with these sorts of things.'

Tugging off the bag from the book, he was able to read the front cover of it.

_The Anarchist's cookbook._

**AN/ thanks for tuning in once again.**

**The sensei's are away and the students will play. The chunin exams are going to be different as you could probably tell from the roster of different shinobi this time around.**

**Read and review. And as always, have a gentlemanly day**


	6. an experiment?

Chapter 6

_The anarchist's cookbook_

_Forging:_

_You have no skills in forging whatsoever_

_Tailoring:_

_You have no skills in tailoring whatsoever_

_Carpentry:_

_You have no skills in carpentry whatsoever_

_Cooking:_

_Eggs. Mastery level 10/50_

_Toast. Mastery level 23/50_

_Instant Ramen. Mastery level 50/50. Tap for mutation options_

_Pizza. Mastery level 1/50_

_Rice. Mastery level 5/50_

_Drinks from mix. Mastery level 45/50_

_Painting:_

_You have no skills in Painting whatsoever_

_Sculpting:_

_You have no skills in Sculpting whatsoever_

The entirety of the anarchist's cookbook fit onto one page. Considering that the entire thing was about the size of a large cookbook, Naruto came to the conclusion he was intended to learn how to make a lot of things. The blond, however, did not really care about how much he was supposed to learn at the moment, because he was too busy tapping on the mutation option for the Instant Ramen.

_*Congratulations, you have learned how to do a skill to the level where you have earned a mutation point for that particular skillset. Mutation points give you a variety of options to choose from. Whether they be new skills, new recipes, better and new interesting ways of crafting your object, and so on and so forth.*_

_Instant Ramen:_

_Description: it's not that hard, just pour some hot water into the cup and wait a few minutes. Tadaa! You have some very not nutritious food in your hands._

_Available mutations:_

_No time to wait. I'm a man of action_

_The polishing of the diamonds._

_New recipe! Homemade ramen_

Naruto tapped on each of the mutations to see what they did.

_No time to wait. I'm a man of action:_

_Removes the required 2 minute wait time for your instant ramen to cool_

_The polishing of the diamonds:_

_Your instant ramen now has the taste and nutrition of restaurant ramen_

_New recipe! Homemade ramen:_

_You are given the knowledge of how to create ramen from scratch. You know, Homemade meals go a long way *Wink*_

'Mutations are given when I reach the max level of a skill? Does this mean I can get a mutation from seduction, or is it only in the cookbook?' he could figure that out later. What mattered now was choosing the mutation. 'Getting _instant_ ramen is cool and all, but instant ramen that tastes like Ichiraku's is way better. Then again, if I learn how to make homemade ramen, I could get good at it enough to the point where I could get a cooler mutation.' Yup, that settled it, Naruto tapped on the New recipe! option.

The cooking section of the book now read:

_Cooking:_

_Eggs. Mastery level 10/50_

_Toast. Mastery level 23/50_

_Instant Ramen. Mastery level 50/50. Mutation gained_

_Homemade Ramen. Mastery level 0/50._

_Pizza. Mastery level 1/50_

_Rice. Mastery level 5/50_

_Drinks from mix. Mastery level 45/50_

Naruto tried to conjure up Homemade ramen's required ingredients and recipe steps mentally, and was able to remember them immediately. It was just sort of… there now. Where there was none, there is some. 'This game sure is weird.' Naruto concluded.

'If I can make enough ramen, that should boost my Homemade ramen skill, right?' Naruto spawned a clone and instructed it with making as much ramen as it possibly could. It then ran directly out the door to get the necessary ingredients.

Naruto closed the book and set it on his kitchen table for future reference, then went to check on his stats in the Guidebook

_Base Stats:_

_Naruto Uzumaki: EXP:1026/7000 Level 6_

_Chakra: 51_

_Chakra Control: 21_

_Wisdom: 41_

_Intelligence: 13_

_Charisma: 51_

_Flexibility: 11_

_Speed: 13_

_Strength: 16_

_Endurance: 41_

_Attribute Stats:_

_Ninjutsu__:_

_Learning rate 50/200_

_Elemental affinities:_

_[Wind 40/200 x2_

_Fire 5/200 x.5_

_Earth 10/200_

_Water 10/200_

_Lightning 0/200]_

_Genjutsu__:_

_Learning rate 9/200_

_Detection 9/200_

_Dispel 8/200_

_Taijutsu:_

_Learning rate 28/200_

_Pain tolerance 33/200_

_Form 35/200_

_Senjutsu:_

_Not available_

_Kenjutsu:_

_Learning rate 0/200_

_Form 0/200_

_Versatility 0/1000_

_close-range Weapons:_

_[Bojutsu 2/150]_

_Throwing weapons:_

_[Kunai and Shuriken 80/100_

_Senbon 2/150]_

_Jinchuuriki jutsu:_

_Control 42/1000_

_Shape manipulation 40/1000_

_Medical ninjutsu:_

_Learning rate: 12/200_

_Ability: 20/400 (May be limited by current chakra control)_

Naruto's eyes were mostly drawn to the newly made medical ninjutsu section in his guidebook. It hadn't been there before when Naruto went to check on it. Then again, whenever Naruto went to check on the guidebook, he never perused it for amusement. It was always just to check up on what he needed to check up on. There was also the addition to the kenjutsu section in the form of two new sections dubbed Close-range Weapons and Throwing Weapons that expanded to show Bojutsu, Kunai and Shuriken, and senbon. Naruto looked at the Kunai and Shuriken skill with squinted eyes. 'Okay, I _know_ that that skill wasn't there before. Why is it there now?' Naruto leaned his head back and sighed a long sigh. Although he was doing his best trying to cope with this thing, and he was learning a lot from his new sensei, he was also very confused by the entire situation that he was in and _really_ needed guidance. Guidance that was dangerous to obtain in his current situation.

Naruto looked at the clock. 6:15. Late enough to where he felt like it would be a waste of time to go out and train himself, but early enough to where he felt like he would be wasting time not doing anything.

Perhaps he should read something. Like a book on RPG's or something. He was stuck in one, so it would be for the best if he got some knowledge in how to prosper in this weird game world.

Well it wasn't a game world, not really. It was more like he was suddenly turned into the protagonist of a videogame while also retaining his self and his world. Kind of hard to categorize though.

Naruto had played some RPG's, but he didn't have the patience to strategize and thusly failed at almost every single one of them. Maybe he could ask for some advice from a gamer. But that would require him knowing a gamer first, so that plan was out the window.

Naruto pulled at his hair in frustration. He had so many options available to him, but they weren't available for him to use. Not if he didn't want people to start asking questions. Naruto let go of his hair and went to his room so he could check up on his money situation.

$4239. Compared to some of the prices that went on the market for large housing, the rate at which he got money would be far too little for him to ever think of buying anything of any actual value. If he was going to increase the rate at which he obtained capital, he was going to have to use more shadow clones to do more jobs. Of which, he couldn't do because he didn't want to overtax his mental faculties too much. There was also the fact that the mission directors didn't want to send him on any more chores because he was hogging them all from other teams. If any more missions were to be taken up, then the teams would have to go without. Not a good thing apparently.

Naruto eyed the Property Management and Wealth Proliferation binder cautiously. He had discarded it at first because it seemed far too complicated for him to get into, but it might be worth it to take another look at it. Picking it up, he set it down on a table and sat down in front of it to crack it open and look inside. If Naruto was going to figure out how the Elemental Nations Stock Exchange was going to work, he was going to have be comfortable to do it. So he spawned a shadow clone and instructed it to get him some lemonade.

Going past his current property (which was still none), he came once more to the Stock exchange and was once more assaulted with visual cues of utter nonsense. Deciding to get a look at it at a micro level at first, he tapped on a chart to see what it would do. It expanded and became much more detailed. It had a line that zigged and zagged up and down in a random and unpredictable manner. It appeared that the line was on the upward trend however. On a small button at the bottom of the page, there was an option that simply stated:

_Buy [0] Shares of KGS._

Naruto trepidatiously tapped the 0 and moved it upwards to 1. There was a small confirmation at the bottom of the screen that told him:

_Would you like to buy [1] shares of KGS for $11?_

_[yes] [no]_

Seeing as he was only sinking $11 dollars into the experiment, he more confidently tapped the yes option. A new text box popped up in the corner of the screen

_Your stock shares._

Naruto tapped on it and was met with another screen.

_Amount__Company__Trend_

_1 KGS 1.21 Upwards. Sell[0]_

Naruto experimentally tapped on the sell button and successfully sold the share that he bought not 30 seconds ago.

_You have sold [1] shares of KGS for $12._

'So wait… I buy something for less money, then I sell it for more money? That makes a lot more sense than I thought it would.' Naruto rubbed the palms of his hands together dubiously. These next 30 minutes would be fun and profitable, he reckoned.

30 minutes later.

The last 30 minutes were not fun and profitable for Naruto as it turned out. After realizing the base concepts of the stock exchange, he bought $2000 worth of stock from a company called IGS, which plummeted in value almost as soon as he bought it. After waiting for it to come back up for a few minutes, he decided to cut his losses and sold what he had, making him lose almost $1000. Experiencing why the stock market was such a risky venture was a good thing for Naruto overall, because it taught him to be far more careful with his money than he would have been. Since then, he carefully put his money towards stock that seemed less risky in nature.

The rest of the time was spent with him getting about $1000 back through various expenditures and profits. And after all that, he still didn't know what the stock market was. He just saw some buttons that bought things, then some buttons that sold them at a different (and hopefully higher) price.

Once he had all the money back that he lost, he decided to flip the paper onto the next page where there was a map of Konohagakure that had small bubbles dotted all around it. Tapping one, the bubble expanded and text popped up onto it.

_Hachiman's tailor and mending services._

_Cost: $2000_

_Description: a very small shop that caters to people's very basic clothing and mending needs._

_Unlocks: Tailoring services, Tailoring teaching, Tailor recipe's_

_Profit: $50/ day._

Naruto rose an eyebrow. 'Why would I buy something that cost $2000 and only gets me $50 a day?' he tapped on a different property.

_Luxury cinema_

_Cost: $1,500,000_

_Description: a cinema that caters to the needs of the upper class. All movie premiers in Konoha happen here, and draws famous actors and directors alike from around the world to try and get their movie placed here._

_Unlocks: Nothing_

_Profit: 100,000/ week. Fluctuates based on the movie market._

The gears in Naruto's head began to turn. 'So if I buy the small Tailoring place for $2000, and it gets me $50 every day. Then… it should get paid back in…like… 5 or 6 weeks. That's a long time, but it would get paid back eventually, and I can also learn more about tailoring. Though I'm not sure how much I would need tailoring… Whatever, shadow clones. Might as well learn it.' Naruto tapped the confirmation prompt on buying the tailor shop. It's not like he had much else to buy with his money.

After checking the other property bubbles, he realized that none of them were in his price range anymore.

Naruto leaned back and smiled. At least he sorted that piece of his life out.

00000000

The next day. Noon.

Naruto was dangling upside down from a rope trap that was attached to a tree. Both of his legs were caught in it. He could easily bend upwards and cut the rope, making him fall down to his safety, but he merely resigned himself to his fate and closed his eyes. His body ached. His head ached. His spirituality ached.

His body ached because of the gauntlet of traps that Anko was making him go through. His head ached because of the shadow clones that were popping every now and again. His spirituality ached due to the fact that he didn't know how to get Sakura to like him.

Even if he could feel himself rapidly improving as a shinobi because of this 'game' that he was placed into, if given the chance, he would go to his old life in a heartbeat. It was just easier and less confusing that way.

Anko landed on the branch that the rope was anchored to and peered down at her student with a sadistic smile. "Hey kid. What's up? Or I guess what's down in your position."

Naruto looked back up at her with a deadpan glare. "That joke was bad and you should feel bad."

Anko's kunai 'slipped' out of her trench coat pocket and landed on the knot that was holding the rope in place, severing it. Naruto fell to the ground rapidly and brought his arms up to brace himself to avoid crushing his head under his body weight.

Whelp. Now it looked like Naruto's body ached even more.

He managed to bring himself up to glare at her smiling visage. "Oops. I guess that my kunai fell out." Anko said, trying to provoke him.

Naruto stopped glaring at her and laid back onto the ground to look at the canopy with a contemplative look on his face. "Yeah, I guess that it did. You should probably secure your kunai more effectively." Naruto said flatly.

Anko frowned. From her limited interaction with the blond, he always seemed eager to learn. Now he had the countenance of a person who had given up. After grabbing the kunai that hit the trunk, she chakra-hopped off the tree to look down onto his prone form. "You okay kid?"

Naruto took a while to answer. "… Have you ever been… confused? I don't mean like confused about a problem in math, I mean like… thoroughly confused about a lot of stuff in your life and you don't know how to talk to other people about it."

She smirked down at him. "I'm fairly certain that you just described puberty. What happened? Cream your bed? Find a ball hair? Crack your voice?" she said playfully.

Naruto lethargically waved her off. "Naw, Iruka-sensei already told me about all that stuff. I mean… so many things are happening to me right now. I'm confused and don't know who to talk to about it."

Anko's eyes lost their luster. She decided that the gauntlet could wait for the moment and laid down next to him, peering up at the canopy as well. "I, uh… I'm sure that you know about my past, right?"

"Nope." Naruto answered flatly. "Your friend Kurenai mentioned something about a guy named Orochimaru, but I didn't look into it."

"Why not?" Anko questioned.

"Because I'm not a nosy piece of shit."

Anko got a laugh out of that. "Kid, you're going to learn really quick that if you want to succeed in being a shinobi, you're going to have to do things that other people don't like."

"Like peering into their personal life and judging them for it?"

Anko took a bit to answer. "You should always know your friends like you know your enemies. Their weaknesses, their strengths, their hobbies, their likes and dislikes… those sorts of things."

"Why?"

"So if they ever betray you, you can use those things against them." Anko said evenly.

Naruto tore his eyes away from the canopy to give Anko a queer look. "So I shouldn't trust my friends?"

"… You shouldn't trust… people. Because no matter who they are, people let other people down."

"That's… pessimistic." Naruto stated.

She smirked. "Do you even know what that word means?"

Naruto huffed indignantly. "I know how to use it right. So what were you going to say?"

Anko was silent for a long time. "If you don't know about my past then I'll fill you in. When I was a genin, my sensei was a guy named Orochimaru. He was a great shinobi, and even eventually obtained the title of one of the 3 great ninjas of Konoha." Anko's tone turned into one of admiration. "You don't understand what he was like to me. I was an orphan and he was the only person that I knew that looked at me with any sort of levity. He trained me. He trained me well. I eventually became the best of my class and was a shoe in for promotion."

Anko's voice went sour. "Then at some point, he told me about this… _training trip._ I, being the stupid kid I was, agreed to go on it immediately."

Naruto glanced at her with some sympathy. "It wasn't a training trip, was it?"

She laughed darkly. "Not by a long shot kid. He took me out to this really secret place, and… experimented on me."

Naruto's eyes went wide with concern. "What?"

She growled. "Turns out that he was just a sick fuck who enjoyed experimenting on people to make 'leaps forward as human beings.' It wasn't a leap forward for me. That snake bastard put this weird sealing array on the nape of my neck. They call it the curse seal. It hurt like a motherfucker. Whenever I try to use it, I get so strong. Stronger than I've ever been. But there's a catch. It makes me act like someone I'm not. Someone that I hate."

She shook her head as if trying to rid her mind of those thoughts. "Anyways, when the ANBU that were sent to kill him found me, they sent me back home. The people were scared of me. I just… you don't know how he operates. He gets into people's heads and makes them do stuff that they would never ever do otherwise. He's charismatic like that. So the people were afraid of me and what I might do, what I'd never consciously do. It was a confusing time for me. I didn't have any friends anymore. I didn't have anybody that I could trust. I only had myself and my thoughts."

"That sounds… horrible."

She laughed humorously once again. "Yup it was kid. But you know what I did to stay sane?"

"What?"

"I found somebody that I could trust. Then I talked to her about it, and she listened to me. And then… I didn't feel so confused anymore. People are kind of like that. They help to give perspective."

"Didn't you just tell me not to trust other people?"

"I said to hold them at an arm's length away."

Naruto's eyes lit up with a renewed vigor. "Yeah, you're right. I just need to find someone that I can talk to. That's it."

Anko jumped up enthusiastically. "That's the spirit kid. Now get up, we're going to do some training!"

Naruto jumped up with her. "Fuck yeah!"

00000000

Meanwhile.

Naruto's clone looked up from his map to the shop that he was standing in front of with unimpressed eyes. It was a dinky little thing, but it spoke of a pleasantness that could only be had from a family owned store. Naruto walked inside to find the cashier stand empty.

"Hello." Naruto called out. He dimly heard a slight rustling of clothe from the back before a teenager stepped into view. He seemed normal for the most part. Black hair that was flat on top and split multiple ways down the back, slightly hunched back, but his most distinguishing characteristics were his eyes. They were sour and grim, like dead fish eyes.

The teen looked at Naruto appraisingly. "You here for clothing alterations?"

Naruto looked at the teen in confusion before replying "Eh, no. I'm the new owner."

The teen's eyes widened fractionally. "What? Look kid, I don't have any time for games-"

"No, no. I'm the owner. Really! I just bought this place for $2000." Well this might be bad. Naruto had only bought the property on a piece of paper in a binder. This kid might not know and Naruto wouldn't be able to buy it

"But… you just… oh, you're a shinobi aren't you? An _adult_ by society's perspective. Uzumaki Naruto I presume."

Naruto mentally sighed in relief "Yeah. I just came by to check up on the business."

"Hmmm. Well my name's Hachiman Hikigaya. My dad just died and I'm not old enough to own a business, so this place went on sale."

"Oh, uhh… I'm sorry for your loss."

Hachiman waved him off. "Don't be. He was a dick. You own any other businesses?"

Naruto shook his head.

Hachiman sighed in annoyance. "So this is how it's going to work, after all the expenses are paid, the new materials, my wage, any unforeseen accidents or failures, you get the profit. Although that only amounts up to about $50 a day, it's your choice what you want to do with that money. You could put in your bank account, put it towards the store for renovations, or just… whatever floats your boat. I don't really care."

"Is that it? Isn't it more… intensive than that? Being the owner an all."

Hachiman shook his head. "Nope. My dad taught me how to finance the store and all before he kicked the bucket. So seeing as I'm the only employee, I'll be taking the role as manager. It'll be tough though, filling out orders that two people used to. So I'm probably going to hire someone as well."

"I could help." Naruto immediately offered.

Hachiman looked at him with a confuddled expression. "What? Do you even know how to sew, or do alterations, or to make custom clothes?"

Naruto shook his head to all accounts. "Nope. But I'm a fast learner. Plus I've been meaning to take up sewing."

"But… you're a shinobi. Don't you have other things that are supposed to take precedence?"

"Yeah. But I'm not really here right now, the original anyways. I'm a clone. Everything that I learn goes back to the original when I dispel. Pretty cool huh?" Naruto said with his foxy grin.

Hachiman backed away out of surprise. "You shinobi are so weird. Anyways, if I'm going to teach you how to sew, you're going to have to pay me and the store some extra money. If I'm teaching you, I can't be filling out orders. There are also things like the materials that you're going to waste if I teach you. You fine with that?"

Naruto nodded. He could get the money back when he was sufficiently trained in the tailor arts.

Hachiman leaned away from Naruto and cracked his vertebrae. When he was done stretching out, he said "We might as well get started then."

_Gained Hachiman Hikigaya as a teacher._

00000000

6:00

Naruto was walking back home whilst trying to heal himself through use of the Mystic Palm technique. He couldn't do things like stitch cuts together yet, but he could at the very least deaden pain and aches, something that he was doing a lot as of late.

Anko was a slave driver when it came to traps. She forced him to run through the forest of death at high speeds while identifying and getting out of the way of traps. When that didn't happen often though, as she chased him in, over, and around the tree line it was hard to not only identify cleverly concealed traps, but to also get out of the way in time to not get stuck in it.

Even through her unorthodox training methods, he managed to run through the gauntlet of traps up until she called it quits. By that time though, he had at least gotten to the point where he could identify and get past half the traps that he almost ran into. So there was that at least.

He was also the victim of a pounding headache, the source of which was probably rooted in the use of far too many shadow clones. Although he _was_ making good progress on cooking actual ramen and sewing the various stitches of clothing. Luckily he was also able to deaden the pain of a headache using medical ninjutsu.

Medical ninjutsu is just so awesome.

_Random Encounter! Help Mr. Higurashi carry his ingots to his forge_

_Rewards: increased influence with Mr. Higurashi, Forging +10_

Naruto stared at the pop-up with more than a little ire. 'What's an ingot?' there was a sound of labored grunting directly towards on Naruto's side. Looking over, he saw a large and imposing man weighed down by load that was obviously too large for him to carry.

Naruto walked up to him and asked "Do you need help with that?"

The heavily perspiring man barely moved his head to acknowledge Naruto's presence. "You wouldn't be able to help." He said gruffly.

Naruto's eyes slanted in annoyance. 'Why does everyone think that I can't help?' the load that the man was carrying was spread across multiple bags that were bulging outwards at strange angles. "Oh come on. I'm stronger than I look." Naruto said persuasively.

Higurashi's eyes flickered to Naruto's form. "Okay." He said simply, before offloading a bag onto Naruto.

"OOOF." That bag hit him like a ton of rocks hits the ground after being dropped from a freight train. Needless to say, it didn't feel good. "What's- *grunts* in here? *grunts* shit 'n bricks?"

Relieved slightly of his load, the man was capable of slightly better motor control and thusly capable of giving Naruto more than a glance. "Iron."

"Iron? So you're a forger?" Made sense considering that Naruto got a boost in forging from him.

"Forger? Doesn't exist. I'm a blacksmith." Higurashi said before moving forwards, expecting Naruto to follow.

Getting a good grip on the bag, Naruto ambled forward. "Why don't you use a wheelbarrow *grunts* or something?"

"I did have a wheelbarrow. It broke." Higurashi seemed to speak in clipped, impersonal phrases. Giving the air of a very pragmatic man.

"How did you manage that?"

Naruto's incessant questioning of Higurashi seemed to draw his ire, but he humored Naruto nonetheless. "The load was too heavy."

"Why did you have to take it all in one trip?"

"I thought it could fit."

"But it couldn't."

The hulking man refused to answer. Time passed a while for them both, hefting the large bags full of iron was rather hard work after all. Soon however, Higurashi initiated conversation. "You a ninja?"

"Yeah, just graduated this year."

"Do you know my daughter? Her name's Tenten, she graduated a year ahead of you."

"Her name… does sound familiar, but I can't place it."

He grunted in affirmation. "She used to help me out around the forge, but now that she's a ninja, she doesn't have the time."

"I could help you out." Naruto offered immediately.

He looked at Naruto with the same derision that Hachiman seemed to employ. "Do you smith?"

"No, but I'm a fast learner."

Higurashi seemed to consider it before replying "I can't use someone who doesn't know what a forge is."

"Then teach me." This was good. If Naruto could get this guy to teach him how to forge, then he could make all sorts of cool ninja stuff.

"It costs time to teach. Time is worth a lot of money in the blacksmithing industry."

"How much does it cost to learn?"

Higurashi stayed quiet for a while so he could do the math in his head. "About… $50 an hour."

"Cool. When should I come by?"

"You have that spending money?"

Naruto grinned as wide as he could while he was under the weight of the bag of ingots. "What do you think I am? I'm a ninja. I get paid good."

"Wrong. You get paid well."

"Tomato Tomahto."

He grumbled a little bit before replying "Come by my forge in the mornings."

_Gained Mr. Higurashi as a teacher._

Naruto deadpanned. "That's cool and all, but where is it?"

He pointed to a shop that they were approaching. The sign read 'Higurashi weapon emporium.'

00000000

Meanwhile.

"I take it you've had a pleasant trip so far." The aging Hokage asked the man situated directly in front of him.

"Where's everyone else?" He asked bluntly. He was a rather non-descript man. Rusty red hair and a black ninja suit with a canister of an unknown nature strapped to his waist. This man was the Fourth Kazekage.

The older man sighed and started shuffling his notes to get them straightened out. "Onoki arrive here yesterday. Ai is due to arrive here tomorrow, and I've gotten no word from either the rebel leader of the kekai genkai faction, nor the actual Mizukage himself.

The man seemed satisfied with the answer given. "So tell me about this grand experiment that you've planned out."

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	7. a Prepping for the test

Chapter 7

Several days later.

Naruto looked at the man on the ground with no small amount of apprehension in his eyes. The man had a scrawny build, wispy little tufts of hair poking out of his scalp, and horribly ugly facial features. These features were not helped by the large amount of blunt force trauma applied to it. He was also tied up and leaning against one of the large trees that propagated the forest of death.

"Who is this guy?" Naruto asked without tearing his eyes away from him.

Anko walked over and grabbed the man by his hair to that Naruto could get a better look at his face. "This man," she said almost gleefully. "Is Kanzaku Kinu." Anko paused to let Naruto speak

"What's he doing here?"

"Excellent question! Zaku here," she pulled the hair harder, making him moan in pain. "Is responsible for 12 accounts of rape and 14 accounts of murder. The 14 murders include the 12 rapes along with the 2 attempted, but not accomplished rapes."

Naruto's eyes grew wide with concern. "What the fuck?! Why's he here?"

"Another excellent question! See, shithead here is going on the chop and block tomorrow. So I pulled some strings in the T&amp;I department to see if I could get him to help with your education."

Naruto became apprehensive once more. "What education?"

"Field medicine of course!" she responded gleefully. "You're going into medical ninjutsu and that's great. But no amount of medical ninjutsu is going to teach you how to relocate a shoulder or amputate a limb."

Naruto was slightly slow to the uptake. "How's he going to help me with that?"

"You are just so full of fantastic questions today aren't you?" she then pulled a kunai out of her coat pocket and severed the man's bonding. He slumped forward in a heap and made no attempt to try and flee. Even though he was semi-conscious, he seemed incapable of moving. After releasing him, she grabbed his arm and lifted it behind his back, then jerked it quickly, making an audible _popping_ sound.

The man started to struggle fitfully, but was unable to break out of her hold. Naruto looked at the scene in horror. "What are you doing!?" he almost shouted out.

"I'm going to teach you the most expedient way of relocating a shoulder possible. By relocating a shoulder."

"No. No, I refuse. Fuck no." Naruto said with great gesticulations.

Anko leveled a confused glare. "What's your problem?"

"That's… that's just not right. It's immoral!"

She seemed to get a laugh out of that. "Immoral? We're ninja! Immorality is our strong suit."

"It's still not right to torture a man without any… without any… what was it called? Just cause! It's not right to torture a man without any just cause."

"Yeah, well it's not right to rape and murder callously is it? But this guy doesn't seem to give any _fucks_." At the last word, she twisted his arm to the side a little bit more, drawing screams and whimpers from the pitiful man.

"But-"

"Kid." She said humorlessly for the first since the day. "You can see this as either torturing a helpless man, giving out divine retribution, or just taking advantage of a good opportunity to learn medicine the best way possible."

Seeing that Naruto still looked unconvinced, she let the arm drop to the floor only to grab the opposite one. "If only there were _someone_" she twisted the arm to the side, dislocating it like the other one "who knew how to relocate a shoulder. Isn't it just a fucking _shame_?" she twisted the arm the side once more. At this point, the man was frothing at the mouth in, dull with pain.

Naruto looked at the man for an intense while. He still thought it was wrong to torture people for the sake of making them suffer, but then again the man _did_ commit reprehensible and inhumane acts. And it _was_ always far more informative to work on actual people when learning how to heal them, his time in the hospital had taught him that. After a bit more of mental deliberations, he finally said "Okay, where do we start?"

Anko put up a cruel smile. "Lesson one: joints!"

00000000

Naruto and Hachiman were working diligently on their respective projects. Naruto was attempting to sew a hole on a shirt closed while Hachiman was working on a custom dress for some sort of high school prom.

As a rule, custom made articles of clothing were far more expensive to make and always took much longer. But considering that they were almost always unique and individual, there was a lot of commodity for them. Currently, the sour-faced teen was sewing the shoulders on with a very concentrated look on his face.

Luckily for Naruto, Hikigaya had a tailoring teaching level of 3x, so under his tutelage, Naruto was able to pick up the basics of tailoring rather quickly. Unluckily for him, tailoring seemed to have a steep slope when it came to learning curves. It also required a shit ton of patience to make good articles of clothing, something that Naruto didn't have in spades at the moment. That being said, he was able to patch up clothes rather nicely at that point after having several days of practice under his belt, meaning that Hikigaya could work on the things needed working on while Naruto learned and practiced on his own.

It was an intense environment, one that didn't exactly give much incentive to create small talk. Even though, Naruto considered himself more adept at sewing with a calm hand when he was talking. As they talked, Naruto learned that Hikigaya had a very different perspective of how the world works. It was pessimistic, but still rooted in reality. He even had stories about how his world-view had become the way that it was.

Hikigaya was also really good for bouncing ideas off of. Because of his background as a civilian who didn't really want much to do with the shinobi lifestyle, he took most of what Naruto said and asked as normal shinobi things.

Things like 'How does the stock market work?' or 'If your life suddenly turned into a JRPG, what would you spend the most time on?'

Naruto suddenly winced in pain and drew his hand hastily away from the shirt he was mending. Looking at his finger, he found that he had accidentally pricked it. A quick healing jutsu later and the wound had closed up. Hikigaya glanced at the process with a disinterested eye.

"I still find it weird that you shinobi can do those kinds of things." He muttered out.

Naruto sucked off the blood that had managed to gather on his finger before he closed the puncture. His medical education had been proceeding well, as of yet, he could heal bruises, small cuts, disinfect wounds, and numb pain. Nothing that would make him any force to reckoned with in terms of medical superiority, but at least he could get rid of annoying ailments. Like headaches. He had been getting a lot of headaches recently, so healing jutsu was like a godsend to him.

"You live in Konoha. Don't you see these things regularly?"

"Other than the odd guy jumping on roofs, nope."

"Well I guess that we're doing our jobs right then." Naruto concluded. After making sure that there was no more blood on his hand, he went back to work on the shirt.

They proceeded like that for a while until Hachiman dusted off the dress that he was working on and stepped back to get a good view of it. From his understanding, the dress was exactly what this chick wanted. So he had every reason to be proud of it.

Naruto decided to ask him a question seeing as he was done with the intense concentration. "Hey Hachiman?"

He grunted an affirmative.

"Can you teach me how to run a business?"

Hikigaya gave him a queer look. "I only know how to run a small tailor shop, that's it. You'd have more luck enrolling in a class in the academy, especially with your shadow clone thing."

"But I graduated the academy already."

"The academy is comprised of more things than just a place to teach kids how to kill each other. There are also different adult-level classes, like business management, or marketing, or computer science."

"Computer science?"

"A relatively new field from my understanding… why do you want to do this anyway?"

"Learn how to run a business?"

"No-" Hachiman seemed to be a loss for words. Gesturing wildly to his surroundings, he said "Why did you want to buy a small tailor shop that has almost no revenue? Even if you say that you bought it to take up tailoring, I can't dismiss this as just another 'ninja quirk'"

"I don't know… there was something to learn, so I decided to learn it."

"But why do you_ want_ to learn?"

"So I can become stronger."

"Why do you want to become stronger?"

"So I can achieve my dream of becoming hokage." Naruto said resolutely.

"Naruto, hard work betrays none, but dreams betray many. Working hard alone doesn't assure you that you'll achieve your dreams. Actually there are more cases where you don't. Even so, working hard and achieving something is some consolation at least. Just remember that."

"Who said that?" Naruto asked.

"I did… we should probably get back to work."

Naruto nodded in agreement

00000000

CLANG

CLANG

CLANG

Naruto lifted the tongs that held the crooked piece of metal up to his eye. He was trying his hardest to make a serviceable kunai, but it very difficult for him to accurately gauge when and where the metal was going to be displaced once he hit the super-heated ingot with his hammer. There was also the varying levels of strength to be used for different desired results with shaping the iron in the desired fashion.

Naruto lowered the tongs back to the anvil and started to hit away at it once more. This wasn't his first experience with trying to make a kunai either. The crooked piece of metal that Naruto was clanging away at was attempt number 3. That being said, he did learn several valuable blacksmithing methods on the first two attempts.

One being to be careful where you slam your hammer. He learned this the hard way when he accidentally hit his arm with the hammer and was dispelled. Filling up the forge with clone smoke was hard to explain away to the hulking Higurashi.

Another was not to leave it in the furnace for too long, else it would be reduced to a puddle of iron.

CLANG

CLANG

CLANG

Naruto brought the piece of iron up to inspection once more. It was beginning to take the… rough form of a throwing knife. He was getting better at least.

"Hey Naruto." A voice said from behind him. Turning around, he was met with the sight of Tenten Higurashi. The weapons expert from team Gai.

"Hey Tenten, what's up?"

"Nothing really. I decided to end my training a bit early today and check up on you in the forge."

"Err, thanks I guess. So how does it look?" Naruto asked in reference to his 'kunai.'

She walked over closer to get a good look at the 'kunai.' After giving a minute of silent appraisal, she said "It needs a bit of work."

"Hehe, you've got that right… I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. Your dad taught me how to shape the metal and all that, but I just can't seem to get it right."

She nodded. They had met on his first day in the forge, after the first bit of confusion and introductions they had hit it off rather well. Unlike the other females in his life, she seemed normal at least on the surface level. Tenten was also pretty good to talk to. To him, she seemed honest, if a little bit blunt, and also had a similar sense of humor. Needless to say, within the first few days of interaction, they had become rather fond of one another.

"It's easy, you just have to hit it the right way." Tenten said cheerfully.

Naruto sweatdropped. "Wow, that's really descriptive of you. I know exactly what to do now. You've been such a great help." He said with large amounts of sarcasm.

She giggled a bit. "You don't have to be an asshole about it. Here, let me show you how it's done." Tenten then grabbed his hands in hers and tucked him to her torso. She lowered his hands back down to the anvil and peered over his scruffy head of hair to see what she was doing. Raising her hand which supported Naruto's hand which held onto the hammer, she lowered it down on the piece of metal repeatedly.

Naruto blushed slightly under her sudden physical contact, but allowed it nonetheless. Getting a good feel for the force required to use on the kunai, he soon started using his own force instead of hers. After a few minutes of this, Tenten was merely guiding Naruto's hands as they hit the kunai.

"You also have to be careful about how you hold the iron with the tongs. Shaping metal is more than just hitting it right, you have to know at what angle to hit it too." She began twisting and turning the metal and showed him the effects of the hammer hitting it in different places. It was even starting to look like an actual kunai.

"Hey! This is awesome! Let me try by myself for a bit." Naruto said excitedly.

Tenten let go of him and watched as started to hammer the kunai into shape. She winced every so often as he made a mistake, but the piece of metal was undoubtedly becoming a kunai.

Once he felt like he hammered it into shape, he brought up the kunai for inspection and dunked it into the heat treating oil that was on standby.

Taking off the heavy apron, he used the inside to wipe the sweat off of his face. It really gathered in large quantities when working in a forge.

"So what are you going to do to celebrate?" Tenten asked.

Naruto brought his hands above his head and stretched out his body some. "I don't know. I still need to sharpen it and stuff."

"But you did the hardest part of it. I think that's grounds for a little bit of celebrating."

"Oh? What were you thinking of for a celebration then?"

Tenten put a finger to her chin and started to feign deep thinking. "I know! Why don't we get some lunch?"

Naruto nodded at that. "Okay. Where do you want to go?"

"There's this really great restaurant just across the street. But I need to get changed first." Her clothes that she had on were her training clothes, which were still covered in a bit of sweat and grass stains.

"Cool, I should probably get changed too." Ever since his first day when he accidentally soaked his clothes in sweat, he had been bringing over two sets of clothes.

Tenten walked out of the forge, which was in the very back of the domicile, and into the main house, which took up the middle part of the domicile. The front part of their building was the store that the Higurashi family operated.

Naruto walked out after her and into the store bathroom while she took to the upper floor of the house, no doubt to get changed in her room.

When they were both ready and smelling slightly less of sweat, blood, and grass, they walked out of the store front, changing the sign from OPEN to CLOSED.

Tenten led him to the restaurant that was, literally, just across the street from the store. It was a sushi place that made extremely good food if Tenten's comments were anything to go by.

They sat directly next the conveyor belt that the sushi filed down on. The small plates all had a color that corresponded to their price and when they would be ready to pay, all the waiter had to do was to count up the total from the plates on the table.

The sushi was as good as Tenten had led to believe. Well cut pieces of choice fish meat in their various forms all slid down the conveyor belt. With Naruto's newfound fascination with blacksmithing, small talk was easy to come up with.

They talked about the different materials and what they would best used for weapon-wise. There were also apparently different techniques that one used when working with different types of metals. Iron, for example, was on the softer side of metals, making it easy to shape and mold, but it wouldn't stand up to the abuse of being a sword, so they were best utilized in kunai and shuriken. Steel however, was harder to shape, but far more resilient, making it the best material for things like swords. There were also different alloys that had varying qualities to them, but Tenten didn't know much about those herself, so she didn't go much into it.

A cloud jonin opened up the door to the place and sat down opposite them. She was taller than the average female and had long blond hair that was corded all the way down to her back. This seemed to remind Tenten of something.

"So are you going to enter the chunin exams?" she asked.

Naruto swallowed the piece of raw tuna in his mouth before saying "I think so. My team hasn't really talked about it much. I'm going to show up and hope that they do too."

"You sure? I heard that this chunin exam is going to be harder than the average one."

"How do you know that?"

"Well for starters, there are about twice as many foreign shinobi in Konoha at the moment than there has ever been on any other exam."

"Really? How do you know?"

"Gai told me and the rest of the team."

"Anything else?"

"Not much, but it's all really foreboding."

The cloud jonin decided to enter their conversation. "You two shouldn't enter. It's going to be deadlier this year."

"Who are you?" Tenten asked, affronted.

"Nobody really" she said through a munch of raw fish. "But I do know that this year is going to harder for you adorable little kittens. Seeing kittens going off to the grinder isn't really amusing to me."

Just as she finished that statement, another Naruto clone opened the door and spotted the cloud jonin immediately. Walking over to her, he asked "You Yugito Nii?"

Dumbly, she nodded while looking back and forth between the two Naruto's. Once he got confirmation of her identity, he poofed away in a puff of smoke. She gave the Naruto situated opposite her a hard stare. "You know the shadow clone technique?"

"What's the shadow clone technique?" Tenten asked, just as dumbfounded as Yugito.

"Kind of like the regular clone, only solid." Naruto said simplistically. "But more importantly, why would I need to be looking for you?" Naruto asked the now dubbed Yugito. The memories that he received from the clone were still a little bit fuzzy.

"I don't know. I was just in the mood for some sushi."

The door slammed open and a large, extremely muscular man entered the restaurant. "YUGITO!" he screamed in an annoying voice.

She winced at the sound of the shrill scream. "What?!"

"You can't just wander off on your own!"

"I didn't. I told you that I was going to go get sushi."

He looked like was just about ready to explode. "Then wait for me to respond!"

"You always take way too long to respond!"

Naruto and Tenten looked at this 'conversation' go on back and forth between the two with semi-interested eyes. "Soo… the kunai should be ready for sharpening, right?"

Tenten nodded, unable to tear her eyes away from the screaming match going on between the two foreign shinobi. "Is this what it looks like when couples fight?"

Even over the screaming, the two cloud shinobi were somehow capable of hearing that off-hand remark. "How do we even look like a couple?" Yugito asked.

"I do not start relations with my underlings." The man said.

Tenten grinned at their responses. "Okay, whatever you say. Come on Naruto, we have to polish your kunai."

Perhaps those were poor choice of words on her part, because both of the foreign ninja blanched at her response. When Tenten and Naruto had paid for their meal and left the store, Ai said "They just start doing it younger and younger these days, huh?"

00000000

Afternoon-Evening

Naruto's (The real Naruto) face was a dull green. Walking back to his house was a chore for him that he found difficult to accomplish in the state of nausea that he was in. Anko is a sadist, he decided for finally for himself, no doubt about it now. After learning how to reset jointed bones, she went on to show him how to sew various wounds closed, ending with opening a gash on the man's abdomen.

Even if the man was a rapist and a murderer, Naruto took solace in the fact that he didn't get joy from watching him writhe in pain. He finally lost his conscious somewhere around the third lesson, for which Naruto was grateful. He didn't think he would be able to go through with immolating wounds closed when he was looking at the man in the eyes.

Naruto finally gave up and hurled chunks in the bushes when she went on to the fourth lesson, which was amputating pieces of the body that had undergone damage too severe to keep a hold of.

Throughout all of that, she didn't seem uncomfortable in the slightest, even going so far as to laugh at the more extreme parts of her lesson.

Scary indeed.

Well, at least he got some very informative training in field medicine

Either way, he was going to need to get new ninja items for the chunin exams taking place tomorrow, but that would be done in the morning. Not when he could barely walk.

Somehow, he finally made to his house, where he plopped back down on his bed and went through his stats again. They read thusly:

_Base Stats:_

_Naruto Uzumaki: EXP:4329/7000 Level 6_

_Chakra: 51_

_Chakra Control: 21_

_Wisdom: 41_

_Intelligence: 13_

_Charisma: 51_

_Flexibility: 11_

_Speed: 13_

_Strength: 16_

_Endurance: 41_

_Attribute Stats:_

_Ninjutsu__:_

_Learning rate 50/200_

_Elemental affinities:_

_[Wind 40/200 x2_

_Fire 5/200 x.5_

_Earth 10/200_

_Water 10/200_

_Lightning 0/200]_

_Genjutsu__:_

_Learning rate 9/200_

_Detection 9/200_

_Dispel 8/200_

_Taijutsu:_

_Learning rate 28/200_

_Pain tolerance 33/200_

_Form 35/200_

_Senjutsu:_

_Not available_

_Kenjutsu:_

_Learning rate 1/200_

_Form 1/200_

_Versatility 2/1000_

_close-range Weapons:_

_[Bojutsu 20/150]_

_Throwing weapons:_

_[Kunai and Shuriken 80/100_

_Senbon 20/150]_

_Jinchuuriki jutsu:_

_Control 62/1000_

_Shape manipulation 60/1000_

_Medical ninjutsu:_

_Learning rate: 30/200_

_Ability: 40/400 (May be limited by current chakra control)_

_Miscellaneous: __*Only stats of note will be shown*_

_Trap laying 30/50_

_Trap detection 30/50_

_Poison resistance 5/50_

_Seduction 35/50_

_Gardening 10/50_

_Tailoring 15/50_

_Forging 15/50_

_Field medicine 35/50_

_Poison identification and synthesizing 15/50_

_Medicinal identification and synthesizing 10/50_

_Teaching 10/50_

_Politics__ 5/50_

He hadn't progressed as far or as fast in trap laying and detection as he had in seduction, so it took up more time than he wanted to and he wasn't able to move onto his other desired options like lying or taijutsu.

At least his bo-staff form and senbon throwing was going good too. Well, even the scroll said that senbon were fairly useless for throwing unless you were accurate enough with them that you could intentionally hit weak spots on the human body. With his bo-staff and senbon, he felt like his battle prowess had grown already in leaps and bounds than what it had before.

He had also noticed that there weren't any quests available ever since he finished the first slew, and the first Random Encounter! that he had received since a few days ago was finding that Yugito chick and directing Ai to her. It was a good thing that the shadow clone that was practicing his cooking was out getting ingredients at the time, else he might have missed it.

Speaking of cooking, he got up and walked over to the kitchen, of which could use a proper cleaning, and opened up the recipe guide.

_The anarchist's cookbook_

_Forging:_

_Kunai. Mastery level 20/50_

_Shuriken. Mastery level 10/50_

_Tailoring:_

_Repair. Mastery level 35/50_

_Basic Shirt. Mastery level 5/50_

_Basic Pants. Mastery level 5/50_

_Carpentry:_

_You have no skills in carpentry whatsoever_

_Cooking:_

_Eggs. Mastery level 15/50_

_Toast. Mastery level 33/50_

_Instant Ramen. Mastery level 50/50. Mutation gained_

_Homemade Ramen. Mastery level 50/50. Mutation gained_

_Pork Ramen. Mastery level 10/50_

_Beef Ramen. Mastery level 10/50_

_Shrimp Ramen. Mastery level 10/50_

_Chicken Ramen. Mastery level 10/50_

_Vegetarian Ramen. Mastery level 10/50_

_Pizza. Mastery level 12/50_

_Rice. Mastery level 35/50_

_Drinks from mix. Mastery level 45/50_

_Painting:_

_You have no skills in painting whatsoever_

_Sculpting:_

_You have no skills in sculpting whatsoever_

Yesterday, he had gotten another mutation from mastering the making of homemade ramen. The only option, however, was getting 5 new recipe's that were more specialized than the first one. It wasn't like he was complaining though. More ramen means better ramen.

After that, Naruto flopped back down on his bed and did a quick healing jutsu for his growing headache, then tried to go back to sleep.

Oh wait, he had to sign himself up for that business class.

Whatever, he could do that after he aces the chunin exams tomorrow.

**AN/ Tell me who you think the teacher for the class is going to be.**

**It's going to be another cameo, but this time their roles will be extremely similar, unlike the 8-man being a tailor.**

**I'm going to be doing this for his teachers that teach him stuff that don't actually take place in the Naruto-verse. i.e. there is no business teacher, so I'm going to import one.**

**Read and Review**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	8. a first exam

Chapter 8

Naruto clutched at his head in pain. That was the first thing that he remembered feeling when he opened his eyes to the new day. Pain.

He tried to go through the handseals to make a Mystical Palm generate, but his concentration lapsed and he wasn't able complete it. Naruto went through those efforts several times before it actually paid off. He then brought the hand up to his head as fast as he could and numbed the pain.

"Aaaaaahhhhh." Naruto sighed in relief. These headaches were definitely getting worse and worse. Maybe he should cool it with the shadow clones for a bit.

It was the chunin exam day, so he would probably be forgiven if he didn't have any of his clones go through his daily routine for today. Looking over to the clock on his bedside table, he noticed that it wasn't the time that he set it ring off on. No, it was much later.

Naruto's eyes grew wide in concern. At that rate, he was going to be late. Very late.

"OH SHIT!" Naruto screamed. He got up and threw on his clothes as fast as he could, put a piece of bread in his mouth, and ran out the door as quick as possible. He'd eat the bread when he got there.

It was around noon-ish when Naruto took to the rooftops and sped to the academy. His eyes were glued to the ground, looking for any sign of either Sasuke or Sakura. He was so busy doing so that he didn't notice the special jonin directly in front of him.

"OOF." Naruto impacted the person with as much momentum that a 13 year old genin going about 30 mph could. It felt like he ran into a brick wall.

"What the- Look where you're going…" Mitarashi Anko trailed off as she realized who it was that impacted her. Her face morphed into one of annoyance into one of surprise and joviality. "Hey kid! I was looking for you! Fancy meeting you here."

Naruto groaned and picked himself up from the ground where he laid upon. "Hey Anko-sensei." He replied while groaning "You're really solid, you know that?"

She grinned dangerously at that remark "I'll try to take that as a compliment you damn brat."

Naruto looked around the rooftop for a second. He'd lost his bread somewhere in between the time of hitting Anko to hitting the ground. "Anyway, why did you want to meet me?"

Anko brought out a package that had been securely inside her trench coat until then. It was a rather unoffending package, wrapped in brown and not in a box.

"What is it?" Naruto asked. "I'm going to be late for the chunin exam."

"The chunin exam? Oh that's probably going to take a bit longer to set up than what the meet-up time said it was going to be. There are a lot of people after all."

Naruto groaned. "Does this mean that I could have gotten breakfast?"

"I don't care, now just open the damn thing up."

Naruto took the package with great trepidation, then shook it to make sure that nothing was live in there. Never hurt to check with Anko. After deciding that it was probably an actual gift, he tore open the construction paper that constituted its packaging and took out what was inside. It was a black foldable piece of leather that bulged with instruments. After looking up to make sure that it wasn't anything dangerous (even by ninja standards) and getting a nod in return, he unfolded the leather to see several items that he recognized from his crash course in field medicine with Anko. The largest of which was a small hand-axe, used to hack off limbs that had to be discarded due to injury.

"I can use these?" Naruto asked in reverence. He had never gotten such a great gift as this from someone before.

Anko grinned smugly to herself. "Nah. Those are for keeps. Consider it a gift for not dying from my training so far."

Naruto's eyes widened in disbelief. "Really?" he asked quietly.

"Really."

"Really, really?!" Naruto asked excitedly.

"Really, really!" Anko said in return. She was getting a kick from seeing him so happy from such a simple gesture.

He crashed into her torso to give an almost bone-crushing hug to his ever so kind instructor. "Thanks Anko!" he yelled out, although it was stifled somewhat from being directed inwards to her ribcage. She stood there, stock still with arms dangling to her sides uselessly. Anko wasn't very accustomed to getting hugs, so she awkwardly wrapped her arms around her energetic student. Anko definitely did not excel at shows of physical contact, but he didn't seem to mind in the slightest and continued to squeeze her midsection.

"Naruto?" a voice called from down below him.

Naruto detached himself from Anko's midsection to look down on the street below. There were the confused faces of Sakura and Sasuke looking back up.

"Hey guys." Naruto called from above. "Thanks again sensei!" He said before jumping off the building to meet up with his teammates.

She shook the shocked look of off her face before smirking once again. "Hehe, fucking brat."

Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto all started walking in the direction of the academy. "So apparently the exam is going to be delayed because there's so many people." Naruto stated.

"We know, dobe. There's too many people for it not to."

"More importantly" Sakura interjected. "Who was that chick that you were hugging?"

"She was my sensei!" Naruto exclaimed cheerfully "And she got me this really cool thing!" Naruto unfurled the wrapped piece of leather and showed the both of them its contents.

A moment of silence passed before Sakura asked "What is it?"

"It's a field medicine kit. Can't you tell? There's the hand-axe, the suture kit, the immolating rod, the anti-infection cream-"

"Why do you have it?" Sasuke interrupted. "Or I guess, why are you so excited to have it?"

"Because… it's useful, and… I don't know. It's a gift."

"And this makes you happy enough to hug her?" Sakura asked

"Well… yeah. It's the coolest gift I've ever gotten."

Sakura looked at him with concerned eyes. 'A field medicine kit is the coolest present that he's ever gotten?'

Naruto didn't notice her look because something else caught his attention. "Hey Fu!" He cried out. Sakura looked in the direction that he shouted and was waving towards and saw a green haired Taki kunoichi along with her teammates.

Before she could enquire as to who they were, Naruto shot off to them to make conversation. Sakura looked at Sasuke, but he seemed to be taking the new development in stride.

Walking up to them, she noticed that they seemed to be rather acquainted with one another. They were already talking amiably with one another and Naruto was making great gesticulations, probably to emphasize a point or something. The two teammates of the green haired girl were joining in on the conversation, but the green haired girl herself seemed detached from them altogether.

"Hey Naruto, who are they?" Sakura asked as pleasantly as she could. If they were to be competing for something, then it was probably a good idea to get on their good side.

"These are Takkana, Fujitsu, and Fu." Naruto said, gesturing the team from Taki "And they are Sakura-chan and Sasuke-teme." Naruto said, gesturing to his teammates.

"Dobe." Sasuke muttered to himself.

After exchanging pleasantries, they began to talk about the exams. "So what do you think the test is going to be about?" Sakura asked.

"From my understanding." Fujitsu said "There are always three parts of the exam. The first two parts are meant to get rid of a lot of the genin, while the third part is a tournament style match between all the ones who made it. But the first two tests are always up in the air depending on where you're taking the test."

"My brother took a test in Konoha." Takkana said. "He told me that the first test was a written one, while the second was some sort of survival exercise."

Naruto looked downtrodden at the news. He absolutely hated all written tests. They were his worst area in the academy. Naruto's eyes widened in realization. 'I forgot my bo staff and senbon pouch at home. Well at least the first part is a written, so I'm not at a disadvantage without them.'

The blonde spawned a clone and instructed it to go home and get the desired items.

"So how do you guys know each other?" Sakura asked.

"He got us some ramen." Fujitsu said.

"But that's only because you didn't want to get sushi." Takkana said in rebuttal.

"And that's because sushi tastes like shit." He replied belligerently.

"It does not taste like shit! Katsudon is what tastes like shit."

"You must be mentally impaired to think that Katsudon tastes bad."

"Here we go again." Fu muttered

Naruto nervously scratched the back of his head and looked at his teammates. "They argue a lot." He explained.

Sasuke and Sakura looked at the pair fight with mildly interested eyes before starting to edge away and get to the academy.

As she was trying to break up their shouting match over nothing, Fu waved goodbye to Naruto, who returned the gesture.

The academy, as it they would have it, was jam-packed beyond capacity. Members of all different nations were merely trying to get a comfortable standing space without getting bumped into by another team. Team 7 managed to shove their up the stairs and into the right set of rooms for when the examinations would take place.

They briefly met with other members of other teams, but they had to be separated to make way for the stream of other applicants interested in taking part of the exams. Sasuke, with the aid of his eyes, estimated that there were about 300 people total participating.

Once they were sufficiently cramped against the wall, there was a blast of smoke and a group of Konoha chunin and jonin appeared, upside-down and attached the ceiling. "QUIET!" The one in charge shouted out. He was a scary looking man wearing a large black trench coat and sporting many scars all over his face. "WE WILL NOW BEGIN THE FIRST STAGE OF THE CHUNIN EXAMS. YOU WILL BE GIVEN NUMBERS THAT CORRESPOND TO YOUR DESIGNATED SPOT IN ONE OF THREE CLASSROOMS. NUMBER 1 IS…" he trailed off as he recounted the numbers of all the three hundred or so genin.

Naruto filed into the third room along with all the other genin assigned there. He was number 279. All of the numbers were based on last name, so he sat rather close by Sasuke, who got 268. The person sitting to his left was none other than Fu. Naruto gave a slightly nervous wave her way, which was returned. The sound of the scary man shouting in the first room graced his ears, but the walls were too thick, making the noise unintelligible.

After a good 30 seconds of nothing but silence, the man poofed his way into the room that they were sitting in. He was grinning cruelly. "MY NAME IS MORINO IBIKI. I HOPE THAT YOU LIKE THE PERSON SITTING NEXT TO YOU, BECAUSE YOU'RE GOING TO BE GOING THROUGH THE REST OF THE EXAMS WITH HIM OR HER." Naruto's eyes widened and looked over to Fu. "I am the proctor of the first stage of the exams. The first stage of the exams will be the written stage. There will be no cheating whatsoever. If you are caught cheating 5 times, you will be disqualified. You may work in conjunction with your partner. When I Body Flicker out of here to give the instructions to the third room, you may begin. You will have one hour exactly to complete all questions on the exam."

A couple of chunin entered the room and started handing out pieces of paper face down. "You may begin… now!" With that, the man poofed away in a plume of smoke and everyone turned over their pieces of paper.

It was dead silent. Nobody was talking, even if Ibiki implied that they could. Naruto looked down at his own piece of paper. Even on a cursory glance, Naruto knew that there was no way that he would get any of the answers right. Looking to his left at Fu, he noticed that she was in a very similar predicament. She looked up from her piece of paper and met his gaze. They shared one very long, very tense staring session.

Naruto gulped audibly, then went over his questions one more time to make sure that there weren't any questions that he could have gotten right, but came up fruitless. There were 20 questions total, but they all had either impossibly difficult mathematical equations on them to find out the velocity of various ninja weapons, or extremely obscure historic trivia. Who cares who the second wife of the third son of Lord Digimon IV was?

There was the sound of intermittent scrambling of pencil on paper, but other than that, total silence. The scratching started to bug Naruto's ears they were so annoying. Looking over to Fu, he saw that she was staring intently at her paper, as if trying to figure out a question.

Naruto started getting really, really worried. He didn't know any of the answers to the test and it looked like Fu didn't either.

She started scratching something out on her paper and showed it to Naruto. Naruto looked over, expecting to find the answer to a problem and was only met with the words

_I think we have to cheat_

Naruto looked at the words for a few seconds with a confused expression on his face. Grabbing a pencil, he scrawled out some more words beneath hers

_But he said that we'd be disqualified_

_Only after 5 tries. That means that if we get it within the first 4 tries, then they won't do anything about it_

_That… makes sense I guess. But how are we going to do it?_

She looked at him with wide, concerned eyes, then shrugged.

_I've got really good hearing, but no one is talking._

Naruto's eyes narrowed as he thought out a way to cheat. God, the noiselessness was deafening. Naruto couldn't think with the only noise being the silent scratching of pencil on paper.

Naruto's eyes lit up. He grabbed a pencil and wrote under his message

_I have an idea, but you have to play along._

She looked at what he wrote down and nodded.

Naruto took a deep breathe to calm his nerves and said "Hey Fu, do you know the answer to question 3?"

Even the pencils stopped scratching away on paper. All eyes were on Naruto and Fu due to the fact that he spoke out loud. None of the proctors said anything however, and none of them wrote anything on their papers, meaning that speaking out loud was allowed within the rules.

Fu started to splutter out words nervously as she noticed that all eyes were on her. Finally mustering up the courage to speak, she said "I-I don't know. It's kind of hard."

"Yeah I know. When would we ever need to know which summoning contract was the seventh ever made? This is pretty stupid."

"Well, it is a historic piece of knowledge…"

Naruto eyed the rest of the class. Most of them went back to their papers, but some started to speak in hushed tones as well. It was if his speaking had validated their reason and ability to speak with each other as well. But it wasn't enough. He had to make sure that everyone knew that it was okay to speak. He had to somehow transition the subject away from the test and onto something of no consequence.

"So after we ace the exams, do you have any plans?"

"Err… W-What?"

"Are you doing anything after the exams?" Naruto winked at her, trying to get her to play along

"No, why?"

"I was wondering if you'd like to go out and get lunch with me."

Fu's eyes widened. "W-What? Like a date?"

"Yeah, a date."

By now the entire room was at least chatting with each other. All except the villages that were hostile towards one another. But Naruto couldn't hear any of the specifics, only hoping that it somehow had something to do with the exam questions.

"W-Why me?"

"Because you're pretty and I like you."

"Err… um… yes. Okay."

"That's great, now" Naruto lowered his voice to a whisper "Can you hear anything about the questions?"

Snapping out of a reverie, she nodded and began to circle and write out answers on the questionnaire that she could hear the answers to. Naruto copied down everything that she wrote down, but it was difficult, he guessed, to hear the answers the short and long answers rather than the multiple choice answers. More than once, a proctor threw a kunai at a desk pair and ordered that they had cheated too often, but this never happened to Naruto and Fu.

They were able to get through the hour having written down 15 out of the 20 questions with answers that Fu believed were correct. They high-fived after that.

Once exactly one hour had passed, Ibiki showed up once again in a puff of smoke. "PENCIL'S DOWN!" he ordered.

There was a united sound of sticks of wood impacting the surface of the desks. Ibiki smirked "You will now answer the secret 21st question. But be wary. If you accept to answer this question and don't get it right, then you'll be disqualified from taking the chunin exam forever."

Cries of indignation rang throughout the room. Ibiki let them wash over him for a good 30 seconds before shouting "SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU WEAKLINGS. If you don't want to answer the question, that's fine by me. You won't have to risk being a genin forever. But if you do forfeit, then you'll forfeit your partner as well"

He went quiet and waited for answers to come by. One by one, people stood up and announced their choice to back out of the exams.

Fu glanced to Naruto with a worried expression, but he showed a calm and confident demeanor. She nudged him and stared directly into his eyes. The look told him everything that he needed to know. He merely gave her a thumbs up and a grin.

Taking this as a sign to not worry about them failing, she decided to keep quiet and see how it all played out.

"Is there anybody else?" Ibiki asked once the voices quieted down and there was only about half the class left. When he got no words in return, he merely stated "File out to the main room."

"What about question 21?" a random iwa shinobi asked.

"File out." Ibiki stated far more severely "To the main room!"

Getting his point, all the shinobi that were left walked off and into the room where they all started out in. There were significantly less people there now. Only about a third made it, including their class.

Ibiki, deciding to forgo the Body Flicker, walked up to the front of the room where he stopped to face the crowd of genin.

"Congratulations, you have all passed the first-"

A ball of cloth crashed through the window and threw kunai to the two separate corners of the ceiling. In it contained Anko, and the cloth read:

_Entering: Anko Mitarashi, proctor of the second exam_

"No time to quibble or quabble, you're going to be taking the-"

"Anko!" Ibiki said loudly.

"What?" she hissed "I'm getting in my groove here."

"You jumped the gun. I haven't even finished explaining the first exam yet."

She grinned and looked on at him with a smug expression. "Too slow huh? You should retire old man."

He was about to repute her statement when another genin asked "So what's happening? What about the twenty first question?"

He looked at all of them with disinterested eyes. "One of your classes was told that if they sold out the person that they were partnered with, then they would enter the next stage of the exam. They were all disqualified for doing so, however, and there were only 3 teams that made it out of it. Another class was given a packet that told them to read all the instructions carefully before they made a mark on the test. The last thing in the packet was a statement saying that if they made any marks on the packet, then they'd be disqualified. A surprisingly large amount of teams made it through, with 36 not being disqualified. The last class was given an ultimatum for a last answer and was told that if they didn't get the last question right, then they'd be disqualified from being a genin forever. Those that didn't, automatically get into the next round. 26 teams made it."

"But wait. Why did you do that? What's the importance of those tests?" the same genin asked.

"The first test was telling you that going back on your teammates is detrimental in the long run. The second was to test your ability to follow simple instructions. The last one was to test your willingness to go on missions of grave importance that you were given limited information on."

Everyone present gave various nods or sounds of approval.

"Now!" Anko shouted out to get their attention on her. "Now that you've gotten through the first test. I'm going to decrease your numbers by two thirds in the next one! Everyone, follow ME!" at the last word, she jumped right back out the shattered window and onto the floor below. Everyone clamored behind her and began jumping out the window to the floor below, creating a funnel point.

Naruto sighed into his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "Come on Fu." he said to the girl that was still by his side. "Let's just take the stairs."

"But she said to follow-"

"And that's just Anko being Anko. It's okay to take the stairs."

She seemed doubtful, but followed him nonetheless.

**AN/ Here's the first exam. In the next part, Naruto's team is going to see what he's been doing for the past week and you'll meet everyone else that made it.**

**Read and review**

**And as always, have a gentlemanly day.**


	9. a second exam

Chapter 9

The kids filed out of the window of the academy like so many ants down an anthill. To Naruto, it was actually quite the humorous sight seeing the advanced game of follow the leader happen as all the advancing members jump out the academy window at a snail's pace and run after the next kid.

Naruto looked dispassionately at the scene in front of his eyes. In the distance, he could see that the line generally made it to training ground 44. The Forest of Death. "Might as well get going." Naruto murmured to Fu.

"OI! Boss!" Naruto turned his head to see a clone walking leisurely out of the academy building with his bo-staff in one hand and his senbon needle bag in the other. The clone tossed both items at the original, who dutifully caught them, before fishing out a pamphlet and a book from his pocket and giving them to the original as well. "I signed up for a few classes in the academy too while you were dicking around in the first exam."

"Cool, you can dispel then." The original said while strapping the senbon bag to his leg right next to his kunai holster.

"You know a solid clone jutsu?" Fu asked.

"Huh?" Naruto asked distractedly while moving in the direction of the forest of death. "Yeah, the shadow clone technique. It's really cool."

They began jumping across the rooftops as they ran to the forest of death. Fu wasn't very talkative by nature, so the time passed rather quickly as they ran to the supposed next stage of the exam without any conversation. Naruto was fine with that as he spent the majority of the time running processing the information that the clone had given him when it dispelled.

So apparently classes cost a lot of money when you weren't enrolled as a student in a publically serviced institution. He'd definitely have to make some more job clones if he was going to afford those classes, however they did open up in a month, giving him ample time to make that kind of money. After that, he was going to have to buy the required books and file out the paperwork required to get him into Introduction to Business, Business and World Economics, and Business Theory.

All of the business classes were taught by someone who went by Maou-sensei. A weird name even in the ninja world.

Before he knew it, Naruto and Fu were at one of the many entrances to the forest of death among the milling around genin teams that made it. Naruto craned his neck every which way to get any glimpses of his teammates. This proved to be a fruitless endeavor up until he saw a shock of pink hair stand out at the outskirts of the crowd.

"There." Naruto pointed out excitedly while grabbing onto Fu's arm and pulling her with him to his female teammate.

"Hey Sakura-chan!" He yelled out. She turned her head to see who was shouting at her before giving a half-smile half-wave. Naruto pulled up with Fu in tow to find out that Sakura had been in a 'conversation' with Ino and had resumed immediately when they pulled up.

"Hey dobe." Sasuke said from off to the side. "I'm surprised you made it."

"Of course I made it. I'm awesome. Fu's awesome too though." Fu clutched onto one arm and looked down with a bashful expression on her face.

Naruto looked at this expression of shyness with confused eyes. "What's wrong Fu? You were _really_ awesome. We wouldn't have made it through the exam if it weren't for you."

"Yes we would. He wasn't even scoring based on the points."

"Well… yeah. But that doesn't mean that you didn't do really good."

She smiled a little bit, but her demeanor didn't change in the slightest from his comforting words. Sasuke quirked an eyebrow at their behavior. "What's up with the bo-staff?"

"Huh?"

"The bo-staff on your back. Why do you have it?"

"Oh, that. I've been practicing with it."

"But… why?"

"Because I got a scroll for it and it seemed cool."

Sasuke looked like he was going to comment further, but decided not to as it was impossible to argue with Naruto's logic at times.

"So you're paired up with Fu for this?"

Naruto nodded.

"Well at least you know her. I'm with that guy." Sasuke jerked a thumb in the direction of a non-descript guy talking to his two other teammates. One with red hair and glasses, and another that looked extraordinarily creepy.

"Yikes. I feel bad for you." Sasuke grunted an affirmative.

"Yo Naruto!" Kiba shouted out as he drew near to the group. By his side was a slightly disgruntled looking Sand shinobi wearing what looked like either a black cat suit, or a black bat suit. Either way, he looked silly

"What's up Kiba?" Naruto said as they slapped hands.

"Got through the exam."

"Just barely.' The suna-nin said. "You were just about to write all over the test when I stopped you."

"Yeah, well that doesn't matter anymore. Because we don't need to worry about trick questions in this part of the exam." Kiba declared confidently.

Kankuro palmed his forehead. "You don't know that. That crazy proctor lady hasn't even told us what this part of the exams is."

Kiba made wide gesticulations towards the tree line. "Oh what? You think that we're going to be taking another written exam then?"

Kankuro crossed his arms over his chest. "No, what I'm saying is that there might be a side to this next exam that isn't immediately apparent!"

As they continued to bicker back and forth, Shikamaru entered the fray with a tired expression on his face. He was being dragged to the group by an irate red-headed Kumo-nin. She dropped him off as soon as she made contact with another of her comrades, the white haired one that Naruto had found the sensei for.

"Hey Shikamaru. Still whipped by women as always?" Naruto asked

He shrugged and made a noncommittal grunt of affirmation. "Might as well be."

"Is anyone else coming?"

Shikamaru looked at the sky as he began to think about that question. "Chouji didn't make it past. Neither did Shino. I think Hinata made it through-"

"Hey!" an excited voice interrupted their conversation. Tenten ran up to Naruto with a joyed expression. "You made it! I didn't see you in the exam hall."

"I didn't see you either."

As they got caught up in their respective examinations, the partner of Tenten walked up to Fu.

"So you're partners with Naruto-san?" Fujitsu asked.

Fu nodded. "Err… yeah. I suppose that you're partners with her." Fu asked, pointing to Tenten.

"Yeah. Have you seen Takkana? I could have sworn that she made it through the exams."

Unknown to them, a very very frightened Takkana was following a very very frightening individual who had red hair and a sand gourd on his back. He didn't seem in any specific hurry to get to the test, and Takkana was very afraid of what he might do to her if she suggested that they speed up their pace. He had already threatened her with death once before and she was sure that he was fully willing and capable of following through with that threat.

"No I haven't seen her. I hope that she's alright."

On the shack that was connected to the gate to the forest of death a poof of smoke materialized. In common Anko fashion, she let the smoke disperse to show her in her confident-and-brusque pose. "Alright you guys! This is the start of the second stage of the exam. There are a total of 65 teams and 130 individuals left. As I said earlier, I'm going to reduce that by two thirds." She fished 3 organisms out of her pocket. "Each team will be given either a snake, a toad, or a slug." Anko brandished each of the separate species in her hand. "Each and every one of these creatures is extremely venomous. The slugs and toads by touch, and the snake by bite. Your job is to keep one of these creatures and take two others of different teams. Then you make it to the center of the forest where there will be a building waiting for you. You must make sure that your animals does not run away. You must make sure that your animals are alive and accounted for at the end of the exam. You must keep your partner alive, as we won't take half of a team. You must make sure that you have at least one slug, one toad, and one snake. If you bring more than one of the species, we don't really care. But if you bring any less, then you won't get in. Are we clear?"

A hand shot up amongst the crowd of genin. He was a nerdy looking guy with glasses and a white ponytail going down to mid-back. "Excuse me, but how long do we have for this test."

She smiled disconcertingly at him. "Thanks for asking that. You have a grand total of 7 days, one week, to make it to the center. Also, just to make myself clear, killing is frowned down upon, but still allowed. Ah! That reminds me." She fished out an alarmingly large stack of papers from out of her inside pocket. "If you wish to continue with this exam, then you will have to sign these papers. They state that it's not our fault if you die. Now, who am I going to get to pass these out?"

Anko pulled a kunai out of her pocket and began to point at some of the genin down below. "Eeny, Meeny, Miney, MO!" At the sound of MO, she threw the kunai without warning at Naruto, which sliced his cheek wide open.

"AWW FUCK!" Naruto clutched at his bleeding cheek out of reflex as blood poured out of the wound. Getting his wits about him, he pinched the cheek to his shoulder and used his blood soaked hands to try and create the seals for the mystic palm technique, but his fingers kept on slipping.

While he was doing this, Anko body flickered over to him and tossed the legally binding contracts to the ground as she busied herself licking his cheek wound. Naruto froze in pain, fear, and general disgust as Anko continued to lap up the blood flowing from his cheek. The rest of the genin made a rough circle to watch in stupification as Anko drank his blood as ravenously as a vampire.

Naruto gained his wits, roughly shoved his teacher away from him, and completed the Mystic Palm seals. "WHAT THE FUCK ANKO!?" he finally shouted out.

"Looks like we need to work on your reflexes." She drawled out in an uninterested tone, acting as if there wasn't blood dribbling down her chin.

"You went way too far." Naruto said as seriously as he could. "You seriously went way too fucking far."

Anko glanced at her little student. He looked scared out of his wits, but that wasn't the thing that made her pause for a second. No, there was something in his eyes that spoke out to her on a more profound level. He looked almost… betrayed by her actions.

It wouldn't be the weirdest or most grotesque thing that she's ever done in front of him. Heck, she taught him the proper way to wield a hand-axe when amputating a limb, using a living person to do so.

"Just hand out the fliers. Okay?" She said with the same uninterested tone, albeit toned down a little.

Naruto wiped his hands on his pants, thoroughly dirtying them with blood, before bending down to pick up the packets on the ground. Without any words, he began passing them out to the other genin. They all resumed what they were doing before, even if they did have slightly wider eyes than before, or spoke in hushed tones.

Kiba ran up to Naruto with the rest of the remaining rookie 9 in tow. "Dude, what the fuck was that? Do you even know her?"

It took a few seconds for Naruto to reply. "Yeah, I know her. She's been my sensei for the past week."

"Why would she do that?" Ino asked with genuine concern.

"That's just how Anko is sometimes."

"Even so." Tenten said. "That was way too much. You could report her for doing stuff like that."

"She usually doesn't go that far." Naruto made to exit the conversation by going and handing out the contracts to the rest of them, but Kiba blocked him angrily and took a hold of half the contracts. Tenten also came up and took a portion of the contracts, prompting the rest of the group to do so as well.

"That's seriously messed up man." Kiba continued in a hushed tone. "You should report her."

"I'm not going to do that. And can we just… drop it?"

"It's in the rules of being a jonin teacher that even if the jonin teacher has weird training rituals, then the student must give their express approval of going through the training. And there may be no instances where the jonin instructor hurts or injures the genin student for seemingly no reason. Opening up your cheek and drinking your blood is kind of against the rules for jonin."

Naruto gave Kiba a pointed look. "You memorized the jonin instructor rulebook?"

"I skimmed it, but that doesn't matter. She's not allowed to do that stuff to you."

"Listen Kiba, she's not actually my jonin instructor or just _a_ jonin instructor. Kakashi didn't teach me before, so I asked a couple of other jonin to teach me. Anko is the only one who accepted. She's the only one who's teaching me and I'm not going to turn her in."

"Even so, she has to be aware that it's against the rules to do that shit."

"And I'll talk to her later I guess."

It took up until they finished passing out the papers for Kiba to speak again. "Look man, I'm just trying to look out for you."

"…Thanks. Thanks for looking out for me, but I've got it handled."

Kiba didn't look too sure.

00000000

About 30 minutes later.

Naruto and Fu were hopping through the tree line, trying to get as far away from the starting area as possible. In Naruto's hand was a purple snake being held in leather gloves. He had to be extraordinarily careful with the snake seeing as it was just a really venomous snake, and not a summon of any kind. Naruto didn't know what practical applications the gloves had, but it did give him a sense of protection that handling a snake barehanded didn't.

Eventually, Fu gave the sign to stop and landed on a tree about mid-way up. When Naruto was by her side, she said. "We have to have a plan or something."

Naruto nodded. "Right. I guess that means that we have to know what we can do."

"Okay, you start."

"I'm good at… setting and detecting traps, I know the shadow clone jutsu, the substitution, and the transformation jutsu."

"Other than the basic three jutsu, I know the scale powder jutsu and the water blade jutsu."

"I haven't heard of those two before."

"The water blade is kind of self-explanatory, the scale powder jutsu includes me exhaling a lot of scale powder which has the ability to reflect light to high degrees and is also combustible."

"Combustible." Naruto said slowly.

"Things that are combustible can be lit on fire easily. Although the scale powder is more explosive when there's a spark than anything."

Naruto put his hand to his chin and put up his best thinking face. "Okay, here's how I think we should do it. I use my shadow clones to make a lot of traps all around here, then once they dispel and we know where the trapped teams are, we go over there, you use your scale powder thing to distract them, and I'll grab their animal."

"What if their animal is something that we already have?"

"Then we toss it back. No sense in trying to hold to two snakes when you only have to hold onto one."

"Hehe, that's what she said." A voice said from above them.

Naruto shrieked and fumbled around with the very venomous snake in his grasp while Fu took out a kunai and placed herself in front of Naruto in basic VIP protection stance.

"Oh cool your panties." The voice said from above them. Anko revealed herself from the leaves and jumped down in front of the two.

"Anko? What are you doing here? Aren't you the proctor?"

"Well, duh. What do you think I'm doing? Proctoring."

"Did we do something wrong?" Naruto asked, still semi-struggling to keep the snake's head under control.

"Well not really, but I do need to talk to you."

"Okay." Naruto didn't move from his spot next to Fu.

"…Alone."

"Listen, we're in the middle of an exam where people are trying to kill us. How important is it that you need to talk to me alone and leave Fu behind."

Anko very nearly growled in frustration. "Okay, fine. I just came to tell you…" Anko trailed off at the end.

"Yeah?"

"Just that…" She trailed off once more.

"What?"

"Goddamn it. I'm not good at all this sentimental stuff. I'm sorry, okay?" She finished brusquely. "Slicing open your cheek and drinking the blood was a little overboard, I admit. So I graciously apologize." Anko huffed, looked away, and put her arms over her chest.

Naruto and Fu shared a look. "…It's fine Anko." Naruto finally got out.

Her stance didn't change at all other than one eye glancing over to Naruto.

Naruto sighed with a dusting of a smile on his face. "It's fine Anko. I graciously accept your gracious apology."

She grinned despite herself. "Great so we're all squared away." She turned around and jumped away from the two.

"…Your teacher is kind of loopy." Fu commented.

"You don't know the half of it."

00000000

1 day later.

"Come Samui-chan! Let us show the teams our flames of youth!" Rock Lee was just about to jump down from the tree that he and Samui were squatting on and race into the situation unfolding before their eyes, but Samui held him in place from his collar.

"First off. Don't call me Samui-chan ever again. Second off. We wait to see who's leftover, _then_ we engage."

The fight that they were watching was kind of strange. There was a Suna genin who had a strange ability to control sand and was making liberal use of it in the fight. Behind him was one slightly moist globule of sand levitating in the air at about head height, along with a dry one, and a very large globule about the size of a person directly behind him.

The people that he was fighting seemed rather well suited to each other in terms of combat ability. One tried to distract the enemy using superior speed while the other attempted to capture the Suna genin in a genjutsu.

No matter how well they seemed in tune with one another, their efforts were fruitless. The Suna genin didn't seem very affected by the genjutsu, nor did he have any problems keeping track of the fast one.

Eventually, as the fight wore on, the Suna genin made use of their blind spots to capture them both simultaneously within his sand.

They struggled somewhat and the Suna genin seemed to be very conflicted for a moment before a segment of one of the opposing genin floated off from his covered form. The third small globule joined the other two at height level.

"Hehehe. Blood for mother." In a horribly gruesome display, the Suna genin's fist clenched and the two opposing genin were completely crushed under the force of the sand. Blood spurted out and soaked the ground before the little psychopath.

"N-Now do we engage, Samui-san?" Lee asked.

Her eyes narrowed coldly. "No. Now we flee before he realizes that we've been watching him."

"R-Right."

00000000

1 day later.

Karui stumbled through the brush yet again and turned around to throw a wild slash at the enemy following her. The blade met nothing but air.

"Shit." She hissed to herself. More rustling in the underbrush caught her attention. From the depths of the forest, she could make out huge, glowing green eyes staring back at her. A sharp snarling sound broke her out of reverie and she was off like a rocket one more in the opposite direction of the eyes.

Karui wanted to scream. Not out of fear, mind you, but out of frustration and hatred. 'I knew I shouldn't have gone with that twat's plan.'

More snarling from directly behind her. Her pace quickened and she was trying with all the mental capacity that she had left to remember where their designated rendezvous point was. He mentioned that he was a shadow user. He might be able to help her out of this mess.

She broke through the foliage into the clearing where they designated to meet up at if things went sideways. The snarling was becoming unbearable. There were rustles in the upper parts of the trees and animalistic howling sounds.

Shikamaru wasn't there by the tree where he said they should meet up. "Shit." She hissed out once more.

She drew her sword and stepped into Kumo's kenjutsu stance taught in the academy. Karui tried to pinpoint where the enemy or enemies were, but every time she tried to get a look at a figure in the bushes, rustling or snarling brought her attention to behind her. This continued until she began to nearly hyperventilate from nervousness.

All at once, she had enough of the figures' petty mind games. "Come out and fight you fucks!"

The shrubs to her left broke as Shikamaru walked out, carefully balancing a slug and a toad in either hand. "Pipe down will you?"

The sound of a beast roaring brought her attention to behind her. "Get back." She ordered.

Shikamaru looked at the sight with a perplexed expression before nodding to himself and walking up the irascible Cloud genin and tapping her shoulder. "Kai."

The rustling, the snarling, the growling, the roaring, the howling, the eyes. They all vanished. "W-What?" she asked.

"You were under a genjutsu." Shikamaru explained.

"W… ooohhh." Everything made sense now. Nothing actually came at her and tried to engage physical combat. She only perceived sounds and images that looked or seemed threatening.

Her temper flared up once more. "What the fuck? I thought we had a plan."

He leveled an uninterested stare at her. "I thought so too, until you went and got yourself trapped in a genjutsu and started blundering through the forest."

"RRRRrrrr… how did _you_ manage to defeat that team?" she asked, noticing the new addition to their animal repertoire.

"I didn't defeat them. I took the slug while they were too busy laughing their asses off at you stumbling through the forest. They didn't notice me then, but by now, they're probably wise to it."

"So we should… start running?"

He shrugged.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I so wish I had anybody else for a teammate."

"The feeling is mutual."

00000000

Meanwhile

Omoi looked at a rather cruel scene.

On the ground were two Rain shinobi clutching their calves that had been slit open. They weren't able to move, much less walk.

By his side, a rather groggy Ino was coming around from the forest floor. "Your kekai genkai is really scary." He commented.

"It's not a kekai genkai. Why didn't you catch me? I warned you what was going to happen." She asked accusingly.

"I did catch you, but then I dropped you."

She began mumbling to herself. "This doesn't even matter. They had a snake too."

"Should we kill them?"

"What? No. God no." She replied before walking off in the direction of their camp. "Come on. We only have one animal left and I'm not going to let Sakura get to the camp before me."

"But what if they get another Rain ninja to patch them up? Then they might try and hunt us down. Then they might try to kill us for retribution. Then I'll have to act like a hero and save you. Then-"

"Oh my god, will you shut up?" She asked in a tired tone. "What's up with you and overthinking things?"

He piped down, not having an answer for that.

00000000

A short time later

Neji parried a thrust, blocked an overhead strike, and caught a kick. This fight was child's play.

The boy he was fighting jumped back and drew a kunai from his belt. Neji prepared himself for knife fighting by going back into the basic Hyuuga gentle fist stance. The Mist nin he was fighting was actually pretty good with knife fighting, but he should have started out with it first. Then he might have stood an actual chance.

Neji grabbed the boy's wrist, took a hold of the knife with his other hand, and took a hold of it. Then he thrust his palm forward, still holding the handle of the knife and blocked the tenketsu in his arm. With that arm now paralyzed, Neji was free use it as leverage and pull him into a stab.

The kunai sank into the kid's chest with a squelch and he fell to the ground, dead. Neji looked at the dead kid with no amount of sympathy.

The fight going on behind him with his cousin and the other teammate of the Mist genin was… continuing. Hinata isn't as good as he is with the gentle fist stance. He knows it, she knows, everyone in the clan knows it. That isn't to say that she's not a good fighter however. She's remarkably talented at the gentle fist. But what really lowers her potential as a shinobi is that she just doesn't have the heart for it.

There were several openings in the guy's guard, but she didn't take the opportunities as they were all lethal in nature. Neji nearly sighed in exasperation. He walked over to the fight and slit the shinobi's throat while he was getting his breath.

"You're too kind hearted Hinata. He was trying to kill you. Try to kill him back." She looked at the blood pouring out of the boy's neck and blanched a horrible, pasty white.

Neji knelt down and checked his clothing. A neon blue toad hopped out of his sweatshirt and nearly touched Neji. His reflexes saved him when he brought his own leather glove to pluck the toad out of the air. It was a good thing that the gentle fist went through things like clothing, else he might have a big problem with holding onto the venomous animals.

"Come on. We have to capture two others and waiting a week to do so is unacceptable." Neji said as he hopped to a tree and sped off.

Hinata was trembling a little, but was still capable of movement. When they first started out, Neji had given Hinata responsibility over the snake, but she accidentally dropped it within a few hours. Its chakra signature was nearly indistinguishable from the other snakes in the forest, meaning that they had to give up on it.

Hinata hopped up and after her retreating teammate and cousin.

00000000

_Random Encounter! Don't let Akamaru die_

_Reward: vastly increased influence with Kiba and Akamaru_

Naruto looked at the small pop up with wide eyes. 'That can't… be good'

"Naruto!" Fu alighted on the branch opposite him. "There's a team nearby. Your friend Kiba is in it and he's having a panic attack. What should we do?"

00000000

With Kiba and Akamaru.

Tears burned Kiba's eyes as he continued to try and bandage his dog up. The blood was pouring out in great amounts, more than a small dog like Akamaru should be able to make.

His last encounter with another team had ended up with Kankuro knocked out and Akamaru slowly bleeding to death from a wound that stretched from his neck all the way to his thigh.

Kiba quickly gave them his slug and they left without any problem at all, leaving Kiba to tend to his dog.

Kiba wiped his eyes once more to clear them of the salty water. "Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit SHIT! Come on Akamaru, you're going to make it." he said smiling at his semi-conscious dog whilst his lip was trembling.

Akamaru gave him one slow blink and a pained whimper in return.

Kiba didn't know what to do. He wasn't done applying the bandages yet and they were already thoroughly saturated with the life blood of his dog.

He should have paid more attention to his sister when she was telling him how to sew up wounds for dogs and other animals. He had dismissed it as knowledge that he didn't really need.

He really needed it.

Kiba felt useless as his he saw his dog dying in front of his eyes. He grabbed Akamaru's head and looked directly into his eye. "You're going to fine Akamaru." He said with a trembling voice. "You're going to be fine, and we're going to kick ass, and we're going to pass the exam, and we're going to be best buddies forever."

Akamaru wasn't capable of producing sounds anymore. Akamaru's panting increased and he blinked slowly once more.

Kiba began to break down in tears and wrenching sobs as he saw the life drain from Akamaru's eyes. The blood started to stop coming out of the wound.

"KIBA!" Naruto bounded across the trees and lighted down next to the distraught Inuzuka.

"N-Naruto?" Kiba got out as he saw Naruto and several clones of himself cut the hastily made bandages from Akamaru's body. "W-What are you doing Naruto?" His limbs felt weak and shaky and hollow.

He scrambled up to one of the Narutos and tried to wrench him away from the small pup. "GET OFF MY DOG!" Kiba screamed frantically, not knowing what to do. The Naruto clone shoved Kiba to the ground and merely replied "We're saving Akamaru right now. Shut up and don't get in our way."

Sometimes the distraught needed a kick to the face in order to get them to act reasonably. "Y-You can do that?" Kiba asked with a shaky voice.

The Naruto didn't reply as he began to get out his field medic case along with the other Naruto's. There were only three around Akamaru, any more wouldn't fit. With the bandages now gone, they were free to sew the wound closed. Their Mystic Palm technique wasn't good enough to where they could heal rends in bodies as large as this one, so they had to use the field medicine training gotten from Anko.

All three of them sutured 2 areas in the wound per person, closing it for good. The process of closing the wound took about 20 seconds. The Naruto's then got out another implement and fed chakra into it. it began spitting out concentrated flame onto a small metal plate. They began to press the plates onto the small animal, cauterizing the wound.

Two Naruto's started the Mystic Palm Technique and brushed it over the wound while the other one checked Akamaru's breathing and heartbeat.

"How many blood pills did you give him?"

Kiba fumbled his words for a good 5 seconds before the Naruto slapped him sharply across the cheek to get him out of his stupor. "T-Three. All I had."

Naruto fished in his kit for a while before pulling out one blood pill. "The human body can only take 6 blood pills before it runs the risk of producing cancerous hemoglobin cells. I'm not sure what the number is for animals, but I'm guessing it's less." Naruto popped the pill into his mouth to chew it up and spat it into Akamaru's mouth, then he massaged the dog's throat to get it to swallow the mushy liquid.

"Shit" one of the clones said. "Heartbeat's gone. Get the defibrillator." Out of the sleeve of medical instruments came out a small circular pad with a handle on it. All he had to do was put chakra into it and it would send an electrical pulse into the body, shocking the heart into beating again.

He set it to its lowest setting before pressing it to the small dog's chest cavity. "Clear." The Naruto's withdrew their hands from the dog, allowing the defibrillator Naruto to send the charge into the dog without accidentally shocking the other Narutos dead.

One of the other Narutos brought his hand to Akamaru's chest once more. "No heartbeat."

They did this once more, then twice more, then thrice more before the Naruto checked Akamaru's chest and concluded that it was beating again. The Narutos continued with their Mystic Palm Technique again to run diagnostics and to make sure that Akamaru's body was holding up. After five minutes of continued scanning, the Naruto clones poofed away and the original stood up to address Kiba.

"He's going to be fine."

Kiba jumped up and wrapped Naruto in a crushing bear hug. His sobbing broke out again.

A fourth Naruto clone got up from scanning Kankuro and gave a thumbs up before dispelling as well.

Fu watched the whole thing happen with wide open eyes. "You're a medic nin?"

"Yeah… kinda" Naruto said while awkwardly patting Kiba on the back. "Guess I forgot to mention that huh?" he managed to pry the crying Inuzuka from his torso and lay him down.

"What Akamaru needs now is rest. He should be up in a few hours, given the blood pill works."

"Thanks man. Thanks so much." Kiba said. "I don't- I don't have any of the testing animals to give you."

Naruto stood stock still and looked off in the distance. "One of the traps got tripped." Naruto said to Fu. "And uhh… don't worry about it man. Comrades right?" the blonde Jinchuuriki offered his fist to Kiba.

Kiba tentatively tapped the fist with his own. Naruto shot off with Fu after that.

"I'll make it up somehow." Kiba said to himself, watching Naruto retreat off into the distance.

**AN/ hey, what's up? Not much to say in this chapter. Naruto's probably going to check out his guidebook sometime in the next one.**

**Read and Review.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**

**Ah yes, one more thing. A digital cookie to everyone that gets who Maou-sensei is.**


	10. a second exam pt 2

Chapter 10

Naruto put his hands on his hips and looked up at the captured game above him.

"Hello Naruto-san." The game wiggled in the air at him with a friendly smile on its face. "Please don't kill me."

Naruto sighed into his hand. Fujitsu would have rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment if it weren't for the fact that his arms were tied around his body by a length of rope that held him upside down from the tree canopy.

"Goddamn it. I cannot believe that this happened again." Fu alighted next the agitated Naruto.

"Hey Fu."

"Hey Fujitsu."

Naruto walked around the tree and found a thoroughly dizzy Tenten upside down and held tight to the tree trunk by a coil of rope

"Helloooo Narutoooo." She slurred out, clearly out of her head space from being upside down so long.

Naruto walked up the tree to cut Tenten loose while Fu did the same for Fujitsu.

Fujitsu merely fell down in a clump on the ground, while Tenten used Naruto as a support, seeing as her body felt alarmingly airy at the moment.

"This is the third time this has happened." Fu stated in reference to the fact that whenever they got a trap to work on someone, it was always someone Naruto knew. To date, they caught one team of Shikamaru and Karui, one team of Ino and Omoi, and now one team of Tenten and Fujitsu. They also got a random team of a Snow nin and a Moon nin, but even after an extensive search, they came up with nothing to show for their work.

Fujitsu groaned and got back up to his feet lethargically. At least he got to move around and sway the rope slightly, alleviating the effects of blood rushing to the head somewhat. "You could have been gentler." He complained.

"So what do you guys have?" Naruto asked.

"One toad and two slugs." Fujitsu said. "You?"

"Just a snake." Naruto patted a pouch on his hip rather affectionately. It squirmed uncomfortably in return for the gesture.

"Trade you a slug for a snake."

"Hehe. I think I'm going to have turn that down."

Fujitsu nodded in acceptance and began to stretch himself out. "Separate ways then?"

"Sure." Naruto tentatively let Tenten go so she could stand on her own two feet. She was still a little wobbly and red-faced, but was fine for the most part.

Naruto and Fu jumped up to the trees and began to hop to their home base. It was a longish run and they had a ways to go. After a while in silence, Naruto said "You're not really talkative are you?"

She blushed slightly out of embarrassment. "Not really, I guess."

"… So what's your home like?"

"I like it. Actually, taking the exams in this forest kind of reminds me of it."

"Does Taki have a lot of forests?"

"I live outside of Taki. There are a lot of forests there."

"You live outside your village? Isn't that kind of dangerous?"

"Not really. There isn't a lot of big game predators in the forests around Taki."

"Does anyone else live with you?"

She shook her head.

"Doesn't it get kind of lonely?"

"A little bit, but I have my books. And whenever I'm needed on a mission, they send a falcon my way."

"So why do you live in the forests anyways?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. It was the best for everyone."

"The best for everyone? What does that mean?"

"It means… that everyone's happier that way."

"Happier? Why would they be happier to not see you? You're awesome."

She blushed for a different reason this time. "Thanks." She said, smiling at him. "But you wouldn't be able to understand it."

"I'm not _that_ stupid you know. Why wouldn't I be able to understand?"

She giggled a little bit at his response. "It's not that you wouldn't understand because you're stupid. You wouldn't understand because… I'm in a unique situation I guess. The thing that sucks about being different is that you aren't able to get a lot of empathy."

"Oh god, why are you so vague with everything?" Naruto jabbed playfully.

"'Cuz I have to be."

"Hehe. You're kinda-"Naruto stopped on a branch without any warning. Fu jumped ahead a few lengths before noticing Naruto wasn't with her anymore.

Naruto's eyes were racing back and forth listlessly when Fu came to a stop beside him. "Is something wrong? Did another trap get pulled?"

"Oh shit." Naruto said quietly. "My teammate's about to die."

00000000

Sasuke was having problems.

These problems mostly manifested in that exceedingly strange and creepy Kusa nin that was attacking him.

His teammate was useless. Nowhere to be seen, nowhere to help, heck, Sasuke didn't even know if he was alive at the moment. The Uchiha couldn't bring himself to care however; he had been kind of a douche the past two days.

Sasuke ducked under a swipe that would have taken his head and tried to shove a kunai into the thing he was fighting. He used the pronoun, thing, to describe what he was facing. After all, there was no way that it could be human.

As a rule, the top tier shinobi almost always had some weird quirk or fighting style that got them on the top. However, being able to grow your neck out to monstrous lengths and try to bite your opponent just wasn't human.

His thrust missed by a mile as the Kusa nin bent its abdomen as an odd angle to the side. It used the momentum it gained by doing so to roundhouse kick Sasuke from the back and send him flying.

He impacted the trunk of a mighty oak with a sickening thud, spitting out bile and other fluids from his mouth as he did. Sasuke fell slowly to the ground, unable to move because of the lack of air in his lungs. The ground was coming up fast to meet him. He closed his eyes and did the best he could to brace for impact.

"MMmmph." Sasuke's world halted and shifted laterally from his perspective as a pink blur caught him midair.

Said pink blur landed heavily on a nearby branch with a heavy grunt. "I've got you Sasuke." Sakura said as she gingerly let him down.

As soon as Sasuke's feet touched the branch, his knees crumpled under him and was forced into squatting position from his exhaustion and injuries. "Sakura? What are you doing here? It's too dangerous." He tried to warn half-heartedly, eyelids fluttering open and closed.

"Don't worry. You're safe. We're going to protect you." Sakura replied with a determined look on her face.

"We?"

Another person landed on a branch a couple of trees to their right. She had dusty blond hair done up in four pigtails and was wearing some sort of purple dress/smock. In her hands was a long bo staff looking thing. "You got him?" She asked, not tearing her eyes from the upper foliage.

Sakura grabbed Sasuke's left arm and hoisted him up so she could support his body. "Yeah" she grunted out.

"Kukukuku." A voice from directly behind her. She whirled around and was put face to face to a man with a melting face who was detaching himself from the tree trunk her branch connected to. "I didn't know that Sasuke-kun had such loyal teammates." He said, almost beside himself in amusement.

"Get out of the way Sakura." Sasuke grunted out, trying to separate from the Haruno. "He's way too strong. He's a freak."

"I'm not abandoning you!"

A severe grunting came from their right. Not wishing to chance glancing away from the monster in front of them, they didn't see Temari unfold her fan and unleash a concentrated blast of wind at said monster.

Orochimaru was unable to move away in time to avoid getting hit square in the chest by the blast and get thrown away at the forestry. "Come on Sasuke!" Sakura nearly screamed as she tried to move with the stoic Uchiha. He jumped away with her, but refused to avert his eyes from the direction in which Orochimaru was thrown to.

Sasuke saw the body impact a tree far away with his sharingan. The body turned a dark brown and melted against the tree it impacted. "He's not gone." Sasuke rasped out.

"What?" Temari looked behind her shoulder to confirm what Sasuke said. Orochimaru melted from the tree ahead of her and thrust his palm forward. Snakes grew rapidly from his sleeves and tackled Temari against a tree with a gasp of air. The snakes oriented themselves to where they were hugging the girl to the tree with a tight grip. She was unable to move her hands to make any handseals.

"You know, for Itachi's brother, I was expecting something a bit… more." Orochimaru said casually.

"Sakura." Sasuke rasped out once more. "Get out of here. You can escape."

She shook her head and drew a kunai from her thigh. Holding the kunai at a cross-hold, she tried to put up her most intimidating face in her repertoire of facial expressions, but didn't get much success in intimidating the snake man.

"Wow, even in the face of death, your friend doesn't leave your side. How gallant." Orochimaru's tongue lengthened and shot forward to firmly grab Sakura's kunai hand. Her eyes barely had time to widen in surprise before Orochimaru whipped her away from Sasuke. He stumbled to the floor, now lacking support.

"Sakura!" he screamed at the direction where Sakura was flung to.

"You're thirteen, so I'm not exactly expecting you to go toe to toe with me. But come on, Itachi was an ANBU at your age."

Sasuke ground his teeth in frustration. "Shut your goddamn mouth."

"Hit a nerve then? Don't worry, you'll be useful. If not to your teammates, then at least to me." Orochimaru's neck grew as long as his tongue did previously and snapped towards Sasuke's neck. Too tired to resist, Orochimaru's mouth clamped down on the last Uchiha's neck with him barely being able to react in time.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH." Sasuke screamed in pain as he felt white-hot lead flood his system. Orochimaru smirked despite having his mouth full of neck, but it was cut short as his head was severed mid-neck.

Both parts of the body crumpled to the floor and fell off the tree. Fu, who had done the cutting, rushed over to Sasuke's side to make sure he was alright. After a few thrashing fits, Sasuke's eyes closed fitfully and froth emerged from his lips. "Are you alright?" she asked, testing to ascertain whether or not he was conscious.

Naruto landed next to her with two shadow clones in tow. They each held on to Sakura and Temari respectively. The original bent down at Sasuke's side and started the mystic palm for general diagnosis.

"I don't think we should stay here." Fu whispered to Naruto.

"Why not? You killed that guy, right?"

"There wasn't any blood."

Naruto got up and created another clone to carry the unconscious Uchiha. "Then yeah, we should probably leave."

All five of them shot off into the direction of Naruto's and Fu's home base.

"So what did that snake guy do to your teammate?" Fu asked.

"No frigging idea. Whatever that bite did, it created a sealing array that's messing up Sasuke's chakra. I don't know how to treat it."

"Will he be okay?"

Naruto adopted a dismal countenance. "I don't know." He said

"… He'll be okay." Fu stated with confidence.

"What makes you say that?"

"Because he has you looking after him." she said, smiling at him.

Naruto smiled back. "Thanks, but I don't think- SCATTER" a large boa constrictor flew out of the foliage and nearly hit the group head on, but missed by only a few feet as the five members immediately ran in different directions.

"Kukuku. What have we here? A Jinchuuriki?" a slimy voice said from somewhere in their general vicinity. It was impossible to hear where it was coming from.

Fu very nearly slipped on the branch she landed on. 'How does he know?' she asked herself. 'He shouldn't know.'

"What have you done with Sasuke-teme?" Naruto screamed out at the top of his lungs from somewhere in the distance. Fu was trying desperately to get away from the scene and hopefully recombine with the clones at home base. They _were_ just clones. It only took one hit and the cargo that they were holding onto would plummet to their death.

Fu stopped on a branch and pressed her back to its trunk. This is what most shinobi tactical experts would call a mission gone FUBAR.

Fucked. Up. Beyond. All. Repair.

They were fighting a man who had just knocked out 3 people rather effortlessly by himself, or so she assumed based on the outcome of his fight with Naruto's teammates. They had to protect 3 people, one dying from a strange seal that the man had given him. And they didn't know about any of his fighting prowess other than the fact that he can stretch his neck out, give others some sort of strange seal, and somehow avoid death.

Not only that, but he had information on her status as Jinchuuriki.

Fu ground her teeth in frustration. It wasn't supposed to be like this. She _liked_ Naruto. Probably not in a romantic way, but she did genuinely enjoy talking to him, and interacting with him, and being with him. He made her feel normal. He made her feel like she wasn't a freak and now that was all over, because now he knows that she's a Jinchuuriki.

They had made several plans to follow and phrases meant to enact them over their days together, well more like she forced them down his throat and tested him on them. It made sense to her to be safe rather than sorry. Scatter is the keyword used when they had precious cargo that needed to be saved and thus they run in different directions when ambushed to keep the chances of the people going after the precious cargo down to a minimum. Once they were sure that they weren't being followed, they meet up back at the home base.

That's the plan anyway.

The leaves rustled cacophonously in the trees around her. A big wind jutsu must have been used on Naruto. She shook her head. Fu could keep with the plan and go to home base to make sure that his teammates arrive there safely, or she could save her partner against an obviously more powerful foe.

Chances are he knows that she's a Jinchuuriki. He might not want her help. It might be better to wait at the base for his teammates.

She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. Well, sometimes it's okay to be selfish every now and again and deviate from the plan

00000000

Naruto grit his teeth together and threw the senbon in his hands at the snake person. They all impacted with muted thuds in his torso and thighs. Laughter spluttered from the man's face. "These are poisoned right? What is this poison?... Well, it's plant based. Flowering plant… Narcissus? That's only toxic when ingested." Orochimaru said condescendingly. "Who taught you about poisons?"

Naruto spat a wad of blood to clear his mouth. "Self-taught."

Orochimaru tutted out his disapproval. "You know, you should really get a teacher for these things. You might hurt yourself otherwise."

Naruto glared at the man. His face was jubilant, joyous, happy beyond measure. He was having fun fighting Naruto. "I do have a teacher for poisons, we just haven't gotten to that point yet."

"Hmmm… You smell lightly of dango, snakes, and my curse seal. I was just thinking that you got the curse seal scent from your friend just now, but now I'm thinking that you've gotten it from somewhere else. I also only know one person who smells of dango and snakes so such a point that it would rub off on someone else. So Anko-chan took an apprentice then?"

Naruto growled at the man. The sealing array that appeared on Sasuke's neck did seem very familiar to the one on Anko, but this creep just confirmed it. Naruto was facing off against one of the most powerful people in the world. Orochimaru of the Sannin.

"I'm not her apprentice."

"You're not? Her lover then?"

Under any normal circumstances, Naruto would have blushed and spluttered and in the end have said no. There weren't normal circumstances. Naruto's glare intensified. "No. She's just my teacher."

"She took a genin team?"

"No, she's a special jonin. They don't let special jonins take teams."

"… So what are you then?"

"Her student."

"Students who spend enough time with their teachers that their scent rubs off on them are called apprentices."

Naruto was getting impatient. He drew his bo staff from his back once more. "I don't actually cared what I'm called, she's just kind of nitpicky about it. Now are we going to fight, or talk?"

Orochimaru chuckled as the senbon in his body drew out like they were being pushed. "You're brave, I'll give you that. Not exactly smart."

Orochimaru looked straight up to the sky and opened his mouth. He then regurgitated what looked like the handle of a sword. The snake man grabbed it and drew it out of his gullet with a flourish. Using his other hand, he made a 'come hither' motion.

Naruto ran at the man with the bo staff held diagonally to his torso. When he was near enough, Naruto used the end pointing downward to thrust forward and hopefully catch him unawares. Orochimaru batted the bo staff to the side and caught Naruto with the flat of the blade across his face.

Naruto pulled back and held his smarting cheek with his hand. God, that fucking hurt.

Orochimaru looked at the Jinchuuriki with an expecting look on his face. Naruto glared at him and ran forward, this time swinging the bo staff horizontally. Orochimaru directed the blow to go above his head, but Naruto was expecting him to do that. Instead of being unbalanced, Naruto used the momentum to spin himself around and swing downwards onto his head. Orochimaru put his blade diagonally to the blow, so the bo staff hit the ground with a thud. Naruto dug inwards and used it as a pull to swing his leg forward and kick him directly in the abdomen.

Orochimaru stumbled backwards off the branch and onto the ground below. Naruto didn't leave his guard down for a second. There was no way that one of the strongest ninjas in existence would be defeated by a fall. No matter how large of a fall.

Naruto backed all the way up on the branch until his back was touching the trunk. He kept his wits about him and glanced every which way so as to not fall prey to an ambush.

A great gale of wind blew through the branches and leaves in its way to hit Naruto. To dodge this, he jumped to the right and landed on another branch just in time to see the branch he was on just earlier get torn apart under the force of the wind.

Another one approached him from his left, forcing him to make the same maneuver. This happened twice more before Naruto found himself in a slightly bare copse of gigantic trees. Naruto stopped to catch his breath and look around him to see if there were any signs of wide scale wind attacks.

Great, splintering cracks emanated from Naruto's left. Turning around, he caught sight of a huge snake barreling towards him. As it moved and swerved through the forestry, it occasionally shoved aside a tree or slithered directly through thick branches.

Naruto froze. He had never seen anything so huge and menacing before in his entire life. It was almost unreal how large it was. Actually, scratch that, it _was_ unreal how large it was. And yet, Naruto was forced to acknowledge its existence by mere fact that it was splintering branches and cracking mighty oaks.

"NARUTO!" a piercing scream resounded throughout the forest, somehow draining out the sound of the snake carving a path to him.

After he heard that scream, something happened. He didn't know what, because he wasn't extremely cognizant of it and it also happened so fast. But what he did know was that when he opened his eyes and looked up, he saw that his hands were dug into beige colored scales that belonged to the snake that was barreling towards him.

He could feel himself straining against the force. It pushed his muscles beyond capacity of what they should be able to logically do, but he did it anyway.

"Kukukuku. Two Jinchuuriki? Now this is a surprise." The detached voice of Orochimaru said from atop the serpent. He could hear grunting coming from his side. Looking over, he was met with a huge shock.

Fu was opposite of him, doing her best to hold the snake away from them as well. However, her appearance had changed. The orange of her eyes had taken over them completely, making the sclera an orange as well as her pupils and irises. Her skin tone was darker as well, not drastically so, but definitely to the point where it was apparent.

"F-Fu?"

"N-Naruto?"

They were suddenly clutching nothing as the giant snake that Orochimaru summoned poofed out of existence. Orochimaru faced them from one of the few remaining branches in the copse of trees that they were in. "Mmmmm. You'll definitely make a suitable rival for Sasuke."

Naruto growled at the snake man. It was deep and menacing and did belong to any vocal range that a human could recreate. Fu made a vibrating sound from the back of her throat. It turned into a high frequency whine that would have burst the eardrums of any normal human. Luckily for them, Jinchuuriki weren't normal humans.

Orochimaru did a few seals. All ten of his fingers lit up in a purple flame. "Never did I ever think that I would face off against two Jinchuuriki at once."

Naruto crouched low to the ground and held his hands out in front of him. The bo staff on his back forgotten. Fu made a few handseals and water burst into being onto her hands into the shapes of swords.

All three of them stood there quietly until a leaf floated leisurely from the canopy in the middle between them. The moment it passed below the branch that Naruto and Fu were standing on, they leapt forward at the snake man.

00000000

Sakura sat up in pain. She clutched her head almost immediately. It felt like a drummer was violently pounding her head from the inside. Sakura groaned out in pain softly.

Almost as soon as she made that grunt of pain, a Naruto rushed to her side and started up the Mystic Palm technique. The pain began to fade in small increments.

"Naruto?" She asked. The last thing she could remember was being violently flung away from Sasuke. After that, there was a sharp sensation of pain and her world went black.

"Don't worry. We saved you." He said quietly. "You hit your head on something when that snake guy flung you away. You might have a concussion."

Indeed, her world felt fuzzy and unfocused. "Sasuke?" She whispered.

"Don't worry, he's… alive. We have your teammate too." Sakura nodded and took a look around her surroundings. It was dark, for one. The only light being a hole directly in front of her that filtered in some sunlight. She ran her hand on the surface of where she was sitting. It was smooth and hard but didn't have the frigidness that stone had, marking it as wood.

"Where are we?" the pinkette asked

A bout of coughing directed her attention to the left of her. Temari was struggling to regain her breath while sitting propped up against the room's wall. Naruto made over to check on her, but she waved him off. "We- *cough* we're in a tree hollow." She said with a raspy voice.

"Don't talk." Naruto ordered.

The Suna nin waved him off once more, but didn't speak up. Sakura looked around the space again to see if there was any sign of Sasuke. Spotting a shock of black hair and a grimacing face, she tried to get up and check on him, but Naruto forced her down.

"Don't worry, he's fine for now. You have to rest." She hung her head down and leaned back against the wall.

"How did you find us?" She whispered

"Mine and Fu's plan was to make a lot of traps and get the animals from the teams we trap. One of the clones setting up a trap saw Sasuke's fight and dispelled to tell me."

"How long has it been?"

Naruto seemed conflicted for a moment. "About… an hour I guess. It's kind of hard to tell time here, but Fu and the original should definitely be back here by now."

"The original?"

"I'm just a clone. The other two dispelled a while ago to alert the original how it's going… but he and Fu aren't back yet."

Sasuke started to yell half-heartedly in his sleep and thrash around. The clone swore and got up to check on him.

"Is Sasuke okay?" she asked.

Naruto took a while to answer. "I don't know. That freak did something to him and now there's this weird seal on his neck messing up his chakra system. Unless he gets a sealing expert soon…" Naruto trailed off.

Sakura nodded. They passed time like that for a while. Naruto trying to keep Sasuke calm and not dead, Temari trying not to take in large breaths and upset her sore lungs, and Sakura keeping her eyes closed and not in the sunlight.

'It wasn't supposed to be like this.' Sakura thought to herself.

There were a couple of knocks at the opening of the tree. One large one followed by a pause and two soft ones. Naruto started at first, but soon relaxed. "Anko?"

An ungainly figure stepped into view and was silhouetted against the light. Sakura soon figured out that the ungainliness came from the fact that it was carrying a body on its back. "Hey kid." It said. The voice matched the scary proctor lady and Naruto's different sensei, Anko.

The clone walked up to Anko urgently and gingerly took the body from off her back. Naruto laid her down and started the Mystic Palm for diagnostics. Sakura couldn't tell from where she was, but the body definitely wasn't the original's.

"Christ." The clone said, stupefied by what it was seeing. "Did he put this weird seal on her too?"

Anko shook her head. "You're a clone right? Then you'll know what happened eventually."

"What happened to Fu and the original?"

Anko took a deep breath and leaned against the tree's inner wall. "Only Fu was fighting Orochimaru when I showed up. He did something to her seal and vanished when I confronted him. Seeing as this is a… 'unique' situation we're in, I decided it was probably okay to show some instructor bias and get her back to your base."

"How did you know where our base was?"

"I followed you through scent."

"Then you can find the original?"

She shook her head. "The scent was gone from the place. He probably got taken out by a wind jutsu."

"Then, am I… dead?"

"So long as the original is alive, the clones will continue to be powered until they run out of chakra or the caster is dead."

"…Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Why do you ask?"

Even from her point of view, Sakura could tell that Anko was acting abnormally. She was speaking in clipped tones and said everything with a pensive countenance. "You're not acting like you normally do."

Anko realized her mistake and smiled all too quickly while putting her hand to her neck in an embarrassed manner. "I'm fine, I really am." She glanced to the direction of where Sasuke was laying. "So how's the Uchiha doing?"

"He's not dead. There's that at least."

"You don't know the half of it. The mortality rate of those with the curse seal is nine in ten." Upon seeing the look of horror on Naruto's face, she quickly reiterated "But don't worry, if he's made it this far then he'll pull through." Anko walked inside to get a better sense of the place and nearly tripped on a body.

"Who's this?"

"Him? He's Sasuke's teammate. I found him on the forest floor. He's in a coma, but I don't know why or for how long he's going to be in it."

"Who else is here?"

Naruto gestured to Sakura and Temari. "Sakura and Temari. They tried to help Sasuke before me."

She nodded to herself as if she was confirming something. "Are you okay here?"

The clone nodded.

"Okay good, because I need to head out and warn the hokage. Stay safe, yeah?"

"Yeah."

Anko stepped out of the hole in the tree and hopped away. The clone sighed. "I hope the original comes back soon."

00000000

Eight hours later.

Naruto (the original) blearily opened his eyes to the world. They looked around for a second, trying to comprehend what they were looking at. Soon, the blurs of light refocused into refined dots of sunlight shining through rustling leaves.

The birds were chirping. The trees swayed gently in the breeze. Naruto caught a glimpse of small bunnies running through the brush with nary a care in the world.

Despite his calm and peaceful surroundings, he felt like shit.

No, that was an understatement. He felt like shit that had been steamrolled into asphalt, spewed up with chain wheels, and picked at by dung beetles. If there was a word to describe that exact feeling, he would be feeling it now.

From his position on his back, Naruto pulled his arms up and summoned the energy and willpower to put his hands into seals and create the Mystic Palm Technique. Naruto's hands fell on his chest with an imperceptible OOMPH. The only thing he focused on was manipulating his internal chakra to stimulate the hit cells to help to heal the major bruising on his chest and torso. Once that was done to a suitable degree, he moved onto his arms and finally his legs.

Naruto got up with a little bit of difficulty. His aches and pains might have been diminished, but he was still exhausted. A grumbling sound was heard from his gastrointestinal system. He was also hungry.

The Jinchuuriki looked around him to see if he could get his bearings while taking out a ration pack that Fu had packed and opening it. The last thing he remembered was getting grabbed in the gut by Orochimaru with those purple flamy things on his fingers, after that, he succumbed to unconsciousness.

Naruto's eyes widened. "Fu." He whispered out to himself. Naruto ran to the tree nearest him and climbed all the way up to its very tip to get a lookout. He passed branches that had been broken along the way to the top. He didn't really know what to do with that information.

Once he reached the top, he tried to spy anything that might denote where he was. But there was only a sea of treetops stretched out before him. Naruto grumbled worriedly. Last he remembered, Fu was still fighting that guy and needed help.

If he could have sank to his knees out of a sense of helplessness, he would have. Being at the exact tip of a large tree hampered his ability to do so however.

'Okay, okay. Think! I can do this. I can find Fu and save her from that guy. I just need to find her first… Damn it! I should have asked Anko about what she knows about tracking… trying to find Fu here would be like finding a needle in a haystack.'

Naruto hugged the twig that was the top of the tree and sighed out of frustration. Listlessly, Naruto tapped the pouch which held onto the venomous snake he was holding onto. Not getting any response, Naruto unzipped it and pulled out what was inside. The snake's spine was broken in many places. It didn't take a medic nin in training to realize that the snake was undeniably dead. Disgusted and frustrated, Naruto threw the snake off to crash into the canopy on its way down.

Naruto rezipped the bag, not knowing what else he could do in this situation. But his hand brushed against something square and solid on his right thigh. Naruto's eyes widened in realization. 'The book! Of course! I'm so stupid. I've probably racked up so many points by now.'

The Jinchuuriki sank down the tree until he was sitting on a branch that could hold his weight. Opening the book up, he clicked through the achievements that flashed by without any care as to what they might be or what they might do. Then he rapidly tapped all the experience box windows that popped up, telling him all that he had done to get them and finished by impatiently looking at his level.

'Level 8. That means… 1 merit point! Yes!' Naruto flipped to the merit point section, hoping that the skill he was looking for was unlocked. He spied the box he was looking for, a light gray against a sea of dark gray.

_Sense of the ninken:_

_You gain the sensory equivalent of the ninja dog. A nose that is capable of smelling things so accurately to the point where you could track them, ears that can hear twice as far as normal humans, and taste that is slightly more enhanced._

_Requires: 1 merit point_

_Pre-Requisites: Large influence with at least one ninken based clan member._

Naruto immediately tapped the button, spending his one merit point on the skill. Other than a tingling in his nose and a high pitched whine, Naruto didn't feel any different for the few seconds that those went on.

Immediately, Naruto was pulled into a new world of senses. As he breathed, he could tell the faint subtleties that the world was comprised of. The scent of berry's mixed in with wild animal that had climbed exactly where he was sitting minutes earlier. He could hear the sound of faint tussling from animals he could only guess were yards below on the ground. Now that Naruto could feel all the things that he couldn't earlier, he almost couldn't believe that he had went on happy with senses as dull as before.

Naruto clambered up into standing position. Now all he had to do was run around and get Fu's scent and follow her to the base. 'Oh wait... What does she smell like?'

Naruto heard a scream from somewhere behind. He wasn't used at all to his newfound senses, so he couldn't perceive the distance at all.

_Random Encounter! Save Karin_

_Reward: merit unlocked: Sensory ninjutsu, +15 medical ninjutsu form._

'What's sensory ninjutsu?'

00000000

Karin Uzumaki scrambled away from the bear behind her. A root caught hold of her ankle and as she tried to pull it forward, she heard a snapping sound emanate from behind her.

Karin took in a sharp intake of breath as she fell forward with a gasp. She tried to crawl forward, but her broken ankle prohibited that. Air refused to come into her lungs. Shock prevented her diaphragm from flexing.

Karin propped herself onto her back and was met face to snout with the giant, two-story tall bear in front of her. She wanted to scream, but she didn't have the air in her lungs to do so.

Its great jaws opened and a caustic smelling breath emanated from its inner gullet. The massive chest cavity extended and wind pulled her hair forward with the air that was being drawn into the bear's gullet.

It looked like it was going to roar, but was cut short when a blonde male fell from the canopy and whipped it on the top of its head with a bo staff. The force of the hit made the head fall forward to the ground and impact with a muted thud. The bear growled and tried to reach out and hit the male, but was smacked across the face more times than it could count in the space of 10 seconds. Eventually, the bear drew backward and thrashed out blindly.

Naruto took advantage of this and ran through its legs, throwing senbon at the tendons that bulged out of its legs all the way. He never would have been able to accurately hit the tendons on a human target, but these were much larger and visible.

The beast roared again and fell backwards. It scrambled back to its feet and ran away from the blonde, limping all the way. Naruto turned to the fallen girl to make sure she was alright. "You okay?"

"E-e-e-e-eh… Y-Yeah. I think so." She said absentmindedly. Karin tried to get up, but her broken ankle prevented her from doing so. She seemed almost confused by the sudden pain in her ankle. The pain started out slow, but built in intensity to the point where she had to lay back down and quietly moan in pain. "oohh. Ooh damn it. This really hurts." She said through clenched teeth. "This really really REALLY hurts."

Naruto knelt down by her leg and started up the Mystic Palm technique. His hands hovered gently over the wound, only analyzing it for now. "Damn it." Naruto mumbled to himself.

"What's wrong?" Karin asked with her eyelids screwed shut.

"Oh nothing." Naruto ripped a few strands of fabric from his shirt and tied them together into a bundle. "Say ahhh." Naruto ordered calmly.

Karin only had the mental faculties to do the barest things that humans are capable of doing under high stress situations, taking orders without question so long as it didn't aggravate her wound.

Naruto's hands resumed their hovering over her ankle once the bundle of fabric was in her mouth. "W-Wah're vhoo gooing? (What are you doing?)"

"This is going to hurt." Naruto warned before taking a sudden hold of her foot and twisting it back into place.

Karin's eyes widened and then screwed shut once more as she silently screamed through the bundle of fabric she was clenching onto with her teeth. Naruto began the Mystic Palm once more and tried to soothe the blaring nerves in her ankle.

Tears stung her eyes and the screams became less enthused as the pain decreased. Once it was down to a manageable level, she practically melted back to the forest floor, exhausted beyond belief.

Naruto half frowned at the girl in front of him. He grabbed a hold of her torso and dragged her into a sitting position at a nearby tree. The bundle of fabric that she was holding onto loosely with her jaw was hanging limply from her lips. Naruto pinched the end of it and threw it away into the growth. "Are you okay?" Naruto asked again. "Any other injuries?"

Karin shook her head tiredly "Who are you? Why are you helping me?"

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki and I'm helping you because one, it's the right thing to do, and two, I was hoping that you could tell me if you've seen my partner."

She shook her head. "I haven't seen anyone other than you ever since the test commenced."

Naruto sighed in disappointment. "Never mind then."

"Wait, you're a Jinchuuriki right?"

Naruto nearly threw his hands up in the air in surprise and indignation. "Does everyone and their dog know that I'm a Jinchuuriki?"

She chuckled airlessly from that. "No, I'm a sensor. Your chakra is really warm by the way, but there's a dark, malignant chakra in your gut."

"Sounds about right. Wait, you can sense where Jinchuuriki are? Then you can tell me where my partner is!"

"Is-Is your partner a Jinchuuriki too?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, hold on then." She brought both her hands together in a seal unfamiliar to Naruto and began to channel her chakra. After a few seconds of deliberations, she finally said "There are two more Jinchuuriki taking the test. One is about 2 kilometers to the right of here and the other is about half a kilometer straight ahead."

"Which one is my partner?"

She shrugged. "The one to the left is in the same general vicinity as jonin level chakra signatures, so I guess that one's already finished. Your teammate should be the one straight ahead." She pointed in the vague direction of where Fu and the rest of the gang were.

"Great! Do you know if she's in trouble or anything?"

"It's not moving. So she's either resting or unconscious."

"Thank you so much, but I need to run and help her out. Do you need help getting in a tree or something?"

She waved him off. "Nah, it's fine. That bear killed my teammate, so I'll probably get picked up by the proctors soon. Plus, I just really need to… close my eyes… for a few…" Karin's head tilted to the side and her breathing normalized. She was dead asleep.

Naruto wanted to move her to a safer position, but time was of the essence. Fu might be in trouble and he could be the only person that could save her. Naruto took off in the position that Karin pointed towards.

'Now that I have a better nose, all I need to do is get somewhere around where Fu is and I'll get her scent… hopefully. I still don't know how this whole 'tracking through scent' thing works.'

Nevertheless, he was a man on a mission and nothing would stop him from helping his partner.

00000000

"What the fuck do you mean 'ambush'?" Kurotsuchi asked caustically. "We have all three animals. We can head to the tower now!"

Dosu Kinuta's one showing eye lazily directed itself to face her. "I mean that I have a mission to carry out and to do that, I need to draw the Uchiha away from the tree." He said derisively.

"Pray tell, what is this mission? It sounds stupid as fuck! We can leave!"

Dosu turned away from her. "I'm going to fulfill my mission to my master. You can or cannot come along with me. I don't really care." He walked away, ending the conversation.

Kurotsuchi huffed and started to walk brusquely up to him and look at the tree which caught his eye. "If I'm going to advance, I need you alive. Now how are we going to do this, dumbass?"

"First we wait for my other teammates. Kin and Zaku. Actually, I believe that your friend Akatsuchi was paired with Zaku."

"That's good at least. What about the other one?"

"Some no name medic nin from Konoha."

Kurotsuchi remained silent for a while. "If shit goes sideways, I just want to remind you that this was all your idea."

"Noted."

**AN/ Not much to say, Read and Review, have a gentlemanly day and all that.**

_Excerpts from Naruto: the game, Walkthrough hand guide._

_The attribute system and or how it relates to the teacher system:_

_The attribute system is comprised of a series of skills that all have a numeric value impressed upon them. The higher the number in relation to the maximum points available to learn in a certain subject is directly correlated to how well one does in that certain field._

_Once one reaches the maximum level, there are a few choices presented to the player. Sometimes this can be something where the player gets to choose 2 from 5 options, only gets 1 option and 1 choice, or just gets the whole motley of options. _

_These options can be anything from another skill to special trait that has something to do with the skill in question. It should also be noted that this is very similar to the crafting system._

_Whenever the player levels up, he or she receives a certain number of attribute points according to their level. These points can be put into the skill of their choosing to give them a significant boost in either knowledge or ability or both in that subject. _

_The player can also gain attribute points by just learning the skill through practice and training. This can be modified by the teacher or teachers that the player is under at the time. Status of being a student is in the skills section of the guidebook. _

_Also note that the teacher can only give benefits in training from what they already know. So if you reach or outpace them in their field, you will no longer receive the multiplier that they have to offer. The multiplier has no effect on the allocation and value of the points gained from leveling up._


	11. a second exam pt 3

Chapter 11

She was wearing the standard genin garb that was usually worn by iwa shinobi. She had a rather androgynous figure from behind, the only thing giving away her gender being her voice, which was being used to mumble to herself. She had short black hair and was very distressed if her stance and posture were any indicator.

Naruto was on a branch behind her. She was kneeling down and covered by foliage from the front, but was open to prying eyes from behind. There were grunts and sounds of battle going on below her, which she seemed to be obviously trying to get a vantage point on.

After running away from the girl who snapped her ankle, he quickly caught a scent of strawberries, snakes, and beetles. It was difficult to place the scent of both beetles and snakes, but Naruto likened it to placing a voice that you've known all your life to a face. Naruto recognized the particular scent of strawberry as the shampoo that Sakura used. He then continued to follow the scent along the branches until he got to the place where he was, behind the unassuming iwa genin.

He was close to home base, he knew this much for sure. So the fight that she was watching and he couldn't get a clear view of was probably one going on with Fu and the rest of the group. That, or extreme circumstance.

Naruto wasn't much in the vein of slitting throats when it could be avoided, so he started looking for other ways to take the kunoichi out. Noticing that by her side were three diagonal lines parallel to each other, mimicking claw marks on the trunk next to her. That was the sign that he had placed a trap up ahead.

Smirking, he jumped onto the branch that she was on and palmed her back. "Sorry." He whispered before shoving her out of the tree and into the trap ahead of her. She snapped a line of string from her descent, prompting a contraption of wire and rope to burst out of the surrounding foliage and wrap her to a thick tree trunk upside down.

From this vantage point, he was afforded a clear view of the battle below him. There seemed to be a lull in the fight, as there were three people looking at three other people opposite them. Fu, that Sand chick, and Sakura were all facing off against a guy wrapped in bandages with a metal gauntlet on his arm, some kid with a cocky smirk on his face, and a nerdy looking guy with silver hair and glasses. Off in the surrounding, there was a heavy iwa kid being suspended by a rope with both his hands tied behind him and a girl who was hanging limply from a rope wrapped around one of her ankles. There was blood dripping from a head wound, she was probably knocked out. Fu didn't have her trademark water swords, Temari looked out of breath, and Sakura was swaying dangerously.

Pushing the iwa chick into the trap might have taken her out, but she was still able to make sounds, evident from when she immediately started screaming obscenities at him. The seven sets of eyes all looked up at the new event in surprise. The cocky kid raised an arm and pointed it his newly gained vantage point. A sonic boom resonated from his palm, forcing Naruto to jump out of the tree or be hit by a shockwave.

By pure happenchance, Naruto ended up on a crash course directly for the silver haired nerd. Trying to salvage the situation, he took a hold of his bo staff and brought it down onto him. Showing prowess in taijutsu, Kabuto leaned to the side and sent a kick towards Naruto. Still being in the air, Naruto wasn't able to maneuver away from the kick and decided to block it instead with his arm.

The leg hit his arm and forced Naruto to the side. It stung like a motherfucker, but there was no loss of mobility. A shadow fell upon him as Dosu ran up and sent a straight punch for Naruto's head. He ducked under the punch, but his world view shifted for some reason. He crumpled inwards, no longer able to tell what was up and what was down.

Dosu lifted his leg and tried to stomp downwards, but was hit with a gust of wind and launched to the side. Naruto shook his head, trying to reorient himself fruitlessly. The cocky kid ran up to Naruto and sent a sonic boom his way.

Naruto was only able to go into fetal position and weathered the hit. He got hit dead on and he was sent tumbling away from Zaku. When he rolled to a stop, Naruto brought his hands together in the familiar cross-shaped seal. Stumbling Narutos poofed into existence around him. The silver haired one charged Naruto, expecting an easy fight from the clones.

Although they were a stumbling mess, with all of them together all wielding a bo staff, giving them longer reach, they were able to hold Kabuto off for the amount of time it took Naruto to shakily get to his feet and get his bearings.

When Kabuto hit the last clone straight in the chest, dispelling it, he ducked under a barrage of senbon. He managed to dodge the most of them, but a few lodged themselves into his forearms. While he was distracted with Naruto, Fu ran up to him from behind and grabbed his neck. She brought a knee into his back using his neck as a handhold.

Kabuto crumpled forward and began writhing on the ground with foam beginning to come out of his mouth. She had at the very least reoriented a few of his vertebrae, if she hadn't completely snapped it.

They shared a momentary glance. Naruto desperately wanted to talk to her about the fact that she was a Jinchuuriki as well, but they had more pressing matters to attend to. Fu ran off to help Sakura against Dosu and Naruto ran off to help Temari with Zaku.

For the most part, their prowess was evenly matched. Zaku's jutsu used the air as a medium to impart shockwaves to his opponent, while Temari used her fan to change the medium itself, making her capable of redirecting the shockwave.

Naruto created a series of clones around him, who all rushed at Zaku. He only looked Naruto's way for half a second before sending a few blasts to completely destroy all of the clones. This opened him up to from a blast of air, which clipped him in the side and sent him sprawling to the side. Naruto capitalized on this moment of distraction and ran at the downed kid, throwing senbon all the way.

He seemed pretty good at batting away the senbon moving at high velocities, almost as if he fought someone who used them regularly. Although as he did this, he wasn't able to use his shockwaves properly.

Naruto came up close to him and drew his bo staff downwards, hoping to end the fight by knocking him out. Zaku, instead of trying to dodge, brought one of his arms up and blocked the blow. He then used his free hand to palm Naruto's stomach.

Naruto wasn't too sure what happened next. One moment he was in front of Zaku, trying to overpower him with the bo staff, the next he was pressed up against a tree about 7 meters away from him. Blood rose through his esophagus and he spat it out with what little breath he had in his lungs. Naruto tried to move his limbs, but they were sluggish and unresponsive.

Zaku smirked at Temari. "Looks like the cavalry has been taken out."

Purple tipped senbon sprouted out of his back. Zaku looked confused for a second before falling forward onto the ground. A strange puppet fell downward from the canopy and impaled the sound genin with four knives protruding from four arms. Zaku died immediately.

"Aren't you glad that your brother is here?"

Temari could have laughed in relief if her lungs didn't feel like they were on fire. "You always did have the strangest sense of timing."

Across the way, Kiba and Fu were fighting Dosu head on. Sakura had fallen ill from Dosu's gauntlet a little before Kiba showed up and was on the ground a safe distance away from them. Kiba turned and spiraled into the sound genin's back while Fu roundhouse kicked him in the chest directly opposite where the gatsuuga was hitting him.

Dosu coughed up blood, staining the bandages on his face and fell to the ground, thoroughly unconscious.

"Dogboy! Your friend isn't looking too good!" Kankuro shouted out from where Naruto lay.

Kiba growled. Fu was wobbly on her feet from exhaustion and sound based attacks, so Kiba offered her his shoulder to lean on while they walked to the downed Naruto.

When they got there, there was a clone tending to his wounds. Nothing visible was being treated, but there was still an intense look of concentration upon its brow. After a little bit, the green flared up in intensity before petering out. The clone huffed in amusement and said "Look's I'm finally out of chakra" before poofing out of existence.

The original's eyes fluttered open. "Medic." He moaned out before chuckling a little. "Oh, wait. I'm the medic."

"Naruto." Fu said worriedly.

Naruto waved her off. "Oh don't worry. I know how to treat internal wounds." But that was only because of the medial ninjutsu form boost he got from that Karin girl. Looks like it was a _really_ good idea to save her now. He looked off to where Kabuto was supposed to be laying. "Hey Fu, didn't you take out that nerd over there?"

Fu looked to where Naruto was indicating and became silent. "…yeah… I think I did."

Just as she finished saying that, purple flames spewed out of the tree trunk that housed Sasuke and his teammate.

00000000

_Branches whipped across her face leaving angry red scratch marks. Normally, she'd travel at a pace that allowed her to either avoid the branches or just push them out of her way. She didn't have that kind of time. Her sensei had infiltrated the second stages of the exam and was most likely messing shit up._

_This was _her_ exam. This was _her_ forest. She wasn't going to let that snake bastard take it away from her. No fucking way._

_A wafting aroma hit her tongue, almost making her gag. A fact not known by many is that Anko had nearly the same tracking power as the common Inuzuka, but this came from her snake-like attributes. Namely, the extraordinarily powerful taste buds on her tongue that let her taste the scent in the air much like snakes do. The thing she was smelling smelled like someone had put a boa constrictor, a gallon of tar, and rotting flesh into an industrial sized blender and waited for it to smoke out and die._

_Not a pleasant scent at all._

_There was a scream of pain directly in front of her. Evidently, she was going the right way._

_She arrived just in time to see Orochimaru toss aside a young girl on the branch he was standing on. It looked as if a dark blue tint to her skin was being drained into a seal on her back._

"_You fucking bastard." Anko said quietly. _

_Orochimaru turned slowly to face her. "Anko-chan? Is that you? Oh my, how you've grown."_

_Anko screamed in frustration and threw her arms up to let snakes flow from the sleeves on her trench coat in torrents. They all hit Orochimaru directly in the midsection and tied him to the tree he was standing on. "Who. Is. The. Girl?" She asked, enunciating each word dangerously._

_Orochimaru didn't seem very afflicted by her anger. "Just a very powerful, very uneducated little girl."_

_Now that the tint had gone from her skin, leaving a heavily tanned shade on it, Anko recognized the girl. It was Fu. The green haired girl who was Naruto's partner… Naruto wasn't with her._

"_What the fuck did you do to Naruto?" she hissed, constricting the snakes around his midsection to the point where any normal man would have trouble breathing._

_Orochimaru was not affected by the tightening of the snakes. "Oh yes, of course you'd want to know what happened to your apprentice. Well, _student_ I guess. That little rascal did say that you were rather… what was the word for it? Nitpicky about what you called him."_

_Anko continued to glower at her previous sensei. "What did you do to him?"_

"_He was a bit hot-headed, so I sent him on a trip." Orochimaru glanced up at a break in the canopy. There were broken branches surrounding it, allowing a neat little circle of light to break through._

_Anko roared in anger and flung herself at the snakes covering her sensei. She was accepted into their ranks immediately and she took a hold of his neck dangerously. "You tell me what you did to him, or I KILL BOTH OF US!"_

_Orochimaru tutted at his little former apprentice in disappointment. "Anko, Anko, Anko. Didn't I instruct you on how to not fall into such obvious traps?" The Orochimaru she was grasping turned to mud in her grasp._

_Orochimaru appeared from the tree behind her. "You've got a good _student_ Anko-chan. A little stupid, but brave nonetheless. Oh, and by the way. If the exams are held up at all from my presence, I'll burn Konoha to the ground." With that, Orochimaru sunk into the branch and disappeared._

_The snakes that she was surrounded by returned to her sleeves. She fell to the branch on her ass and laid down it. Too many emotions were raging in her mind to even think about movement._

"_FUCK YOU, YOU PEDOPHILIC BASTARD!" She roared to the heavens and anyone who might be watching her._

_Anko's head lolled to the side, allowing a good view of Fu writhing on the ground in pain. She'd have to help her out at some point. Proctor impartiality be damned at this juncture._

The door behind her opened, snapping her out of her reverie. Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage of the Hidden Leaf village walked up to the seat behind the desk opposite to her. His face was downtrodden and his posture stiff, no doubt from having to deal with the information that his previous student was in Konoha and messing up the exams.

Hiruzen sighed a very long sigh and placed a single document on the table. "… First of all, I'd like to thank you on behalf of all of Konoha for what you've done in alerting me about Orochimaru sneaking into the exams. Secondly… are you sure that you want to do this?"

"Yup." Anko stated in a bit of a chipper tone.

Hiruzen leveled a semi-serious glare at her. "I expect a serious answer. Taking on an apprentice is no small responsibility… I know about your past and that you've been reluctant to teach other students before, even going so far as to refuse promotion so you wouldn't be obligated to teach a team of genin. Did Orochimaru say something to you? And if so, I demand to know what it was."

Anko's face turned slightly more serious, but still had an air of triviality about it. "…For most of my life, I've been scared. Scared that I'd let my sensei down, then I was scared that I'd let other people down, now I'm scared that I'll let Naruto down. But I realized something when I talked to Orochimaru. That even though he screwed me up." She paused to subconsciously touch the curse mark directly on her neck. "That doesn't mean that I have to screw someone else up. That doesn't mean that I _will_ screw someone else up."

"I do hope that this isn't a selfish desire to get back at Orochimaru." Hiruzen implied.

Anko waved him off. "It's not just that… I… I really think that Naruto and I are a lot alike. Something happened to both of us that was beyond our control, and because of that, the entire world decided to shit down our throats."

Hiruzen cringed a little from the disgusting image that popped up in his head. "That being said, I created team 7 on my own. I balanced them in the way that I thought would be best. If I allow you to remove Naruto from that, there will be an upset about it. I have to have complete confidence that your teaching of Naruto will not be detrimental to him."

Anko sat up a little straighter in the seat she was in. "You can count on me to teach Naruto in the most expedient and safest way possible. Trust me when I say that I will be the best sensei that he's ever had."

After careful consideration, the Third pushed the document to Anko so she could sign it. Apprenticeship was actually a fairly important thing in the shinobi world. Most would just create the bond orally, but for people who wanted to make sure that they had legal rights over their student, they usually went for a signed document. The document stated that Anko had limited control over his life. Things like his diet, or his training regimen. But if she was ever caught misusing this power, then she'd be thrown into jail.

This was put into place after a sensei decided that it was good training technique to hang a kid over a pond of piranhas and let him figure out how to escape from it. Needless to say, after that day, Konoha was down one genin and was quickly drafting new apprenticeship laws

The bond between apprentice and master was a very close one as well. Once she signed that document, she was almost required to be around him for most of the day, doing her best to impart what she could of her shinobi knowledge onto him. It's a bond that many consider closer than that of a child and parent, or a brother and sister, or even that of lovers. In fact, many apprenticeships end up in more than intimate relationships. Like Hayate and Yugao for example.

As soon as her signature fell on that piece of paper, she was taking the full legal responsibility and rights that a legal guardian would have.

"Remember Anko, he has to give you his express permission and desire to become your official apprentice. You can't influence his choice."

Anko Mitarashi completed signing the document with a grin on her face. "Don't worry about that Hokage-sama. I'm sure that he'll say yes."

He nodded at her. "Yes, I'm sure he will."

00000000

"What the fuck is going on?" Kiba whispered to Naruto.

Naruto tilted his head back at Kiba. "No clue. Oi! Sasuke! Put the nerd down!"

Dark black flame patterns danced around Sasuke's body, or at least his visible skin. He didn't seem to either hear what Naruto was saying, or care at all. Once the purple flames petered out from the trunk, Sasuke had jumped down from it to the ground with his hands encircled around Kabuto's neck. Naruto didn't know when or how the silver haired nerd was able to get up there, seeing as he shouldn't be able to walk, but now wasn't necessarily the time to be questioning things.

"I-I-I'll pay you. T-There's a slug in my pouch. I-It's all-" Sasuke interrupted him by taking a firm grasp of the pouch on his hip and tearing it off to throw it to Naruto. Naruto caught it gingerly and laid it to the side. So Sasuke was aware that they were there and saying stuff to him, he just didn't care was all.

"What do we do now?" Kiba asked.

"I don't know."

Temari and Kankuro looked at the scene unfolding in front of them with dull eyes. "Fucking leaf nin." Kankuro whispered.

"Fucking leaf nin." Temari said in agreement.

Sasuke looked at the fellow leaf nin in front of him, cowering in fear as Sasuke held him by the neck and glared at him. Sakura groaned off to the side. There was blood streaming out of her ears and vomit covering the lower half of her face. Sasuke's eyes were momentarily diverted to the scene of pettiness and went straight back to Kabuto.

"Did you do that to her?" he whispered menacingly.

Kabuto stuttered out his response, which was incomprehensible from the fear plaguing him by the mere presence of Sasuke.

"I bet you're real proud of this brain of yours." Sasuke whispered. "Coming up with plans, hurting my teammates." Sasuke jerked his hands to the side. The sound of a rotten branch covered in a few layers of cloth breaking in two filled the air as Sasuke snapped the neck of Kabuto.

Sakura's eyes widened fear and surprise and disgust. "SASUKE!" Sakura scrambled up to her feet and tried her best to get to her teammate, who was now fast approaching the downed Dosu. Before he reached him, Sakura launched herself at Sasuke and grabbed a hold of his midsection.

"Sakura!" Naruto shouted out. Sasuke stopped in his tracks and looked at Sakura with disinterested eyes. She started bawling out apologies and speeches about how he wasn't acting like he normally would. It seemed to have an effect on him, as the flames on his body turned red and retreated inwards to form the curse seal exactly similar to that of Anko's. Sasuke fell forward unconscious as soon as the process was over. Naruto spawned a clone to check up on him, not wanting to be around if it happened again.

"That was intense." Kiba said.

Naruto nodded wordlessly. "Thanks for the save by the way. We'd have been screwed if you two didn't save us."

Kankuro pointed at Kiba. "It was all dogboy's idea. The only reason I helped out was because my sister was about to die horribly if I didn't intervene."

"Really Kiba? You didn't have to risk your life for us. Thanks a lot for doing it! I mean, you saved us. But still, you got put in danger."

Kiba looked at Naruto like he was an idiot. "Of course I helped you, you idiot! You saved Akamaru when I couldn't do anything. Helping you out with the fight wasn't even the reason why I decided to find you." Kiba opened his ninja pouch and took out three smaller pouches, one of which was squirming uncomfortably. "Look, man. I know that I can't do anything that could set us even for you saving Akamaru, but this is a start right?"

"Are those…?"

"Yup. A slug, a toad, and a snake. You'd be amazed how many people just drop their animals. It's a good thing that these things have a specific scent too."

"You got those on your own. We can't take these."

Kiba patted his bulging ninja pouch, which squirmed around some more. "Like I said, you'd be amazed at how many people just drop their animals. Plus, what am I going to do with 3 extra animals? Comrades helping comrades out is what comrades do." Kiba said firmly before pushing the 3 extra animals into Naruto's arms.

"Dude… thanks man."

"You two can finish your little bro time later." Kankuro interrupted. "Standing out in the open isn't helping our chances of survival."

Kiba nodded. "You should come with us. It'll help everyone's chances of not dying."

Naruto didn't look too sure. "I don't know. Teme is still out of it. He might need a medic or something."

"Does he have the three animals?"

"He has the snake and toad…" Naruto looked at the little pouch by his feet that used to belong to the now dead leaf nin. "And now he has the slug. The tower probably has better medical people than me, so I should get him there. But what about Sakura?"

"I can take care of her." Temari said. "She's just a little out of it from that sound guy's gauntlet thing."

Naruto nodded and spawned a few clones. One of them climbed the tree to the home base, while the other went and collected Sasuke. Soon, Naruto, Fu, Kankuro, and Kiba with Sasuke and the comatose kusa nin on the backs of Naruto clones were about to take off.

"Naruto." Sakura said. "Please, take care of him."

Naruto smiled brightly at her. "Don't worry about it Sakura-chan. I'm not going to let teme die. If he died, I wouldn't be able to kick his ass."

Sakura smiled half-heartedly and watched as the three departed.

"Oi! What about me?" Kurotsuchi shouted out from her position of being stuck to the tree trunk.

00000000

About 4 days later.

After everything was said and done, there were 11 teams that made it. A total of one sixth the original amount. The teams consisted of Hinata and Neji, Shikamaru and Karui, Lee and Samui, Ino and Omoi, Tenten and Fujitsu, Gaara and Takkana, Temari and Sakura, Naruto and Fu, Sasuke and Unimportant, Kurotsuchi and Dosu, and Kiba and Kankuro.

The last ones to arrive were Kurotsuchi and Dosu, and Sakura and Temari. Sakura's lack of presence up until the last day really made Naruto worried, but it allowed for a more heartfelt reunion.

Well, it depends on whose definition of heartfelt is being used.

Dosu and Unimportant were still unconscious, so it was decided that Kurotsuchi and Sasuke would come together to make one team while the other two were being treated. Sasuke wasn't seen much though, Kakashi had taken him to treat the curse seal and he hadn't been seen since until recently.

Once they were sure that they were finally alone, Fu and Naruto had been able to talk a few days ago.

_Night had finally set on the Forest of Death. Luckily for two Jinchuuriki, they were comfortable and cozy in a bunk bed. Teams were required to sleep in the same room with each other. Sometimes there was a queen size, two twins, or a bunk bed like what Naruto and Fu had._

"_Pssst. Hey Fu."_

_No response._

"_Pssst. You awake?"_

"_Yeah." She answered meekly._

"_Why didn't you say you were a Jinchuuriki?"_

_Fu leaned over the top bunk where she was situated at and glared playfully at Naruto in the darkness. "Why didn't _you_ say that you were a Jinchuuriki?" They both laughed. Not out of anything particularly funny, more out of a relief that they finally confirmed what they saw when fighting Orochimaru._

_When they stopped laughing and fell silent, Fu asked. "Which one do you have?"_

"_Kyuubi. What about you?"_

"_Chomei."_

"_Chomei?"_

"_Chomei, the Nanabi."_

"_Wait, they have names?"_

"_Of course they have names. Haven't you talked to Kyuubi yet?"_

"_No. They can talk?"_

"_Of course they can talk. They're just like people, only… not."_

"_How do I talk to it?"_

_Fu was silent for a bit. "…Usually when you talk to them mentally, they talk back. But Chomei hasn't talked to me since we fought that really creepy Kusa nin."_

"_Yeah, my chakra control has been shot ever since we fought him too."_

"_You too? I can't form my water swords anymore. It sucks."_

"_That does sound like it sucks."_

_They both fell silent, not sure what they wanted to ask, not sure what they wanted to do now that they had the information that they were the same. That they were both Jinchuuriki._

_Naruto thought back to the prior evening. He had checked his book in more detail, finding that it had a new status effect described in it._

Five elements seal:

Description: the five elements seal is a powerful fuinjutsu technique which can disrupt the chakra flow of people it is used on. When it is applied to a seal that has an even amount of matrixes, like the eight trigram for example, it either nullifies or 'pauses' the usage of the seal.

Rewards: You can no longer use the Kyuubi's chakra. -10 chakra control.

_If Naruto were capable of betting anything, he'd bet that the five elements seal was the thing that Orochimaru used on him with those purple flamey fingers. Although he didn't remember anything after that other than Orochimaru starting a rather powerful wind technique._

_He hadn't done anything with the base points either. He didn't know what to do with them. On one hand, he should probably use it to up his chakra control back to normal, but he didn't know if the seal was a timed thing or something, which would make the venture rather worthless. Or he could focus on strength. The reason he got hit in the gut by Zaku's shockwave thing was because he couldn't overpower him using the bo staff immediately. Or maybe he should put it towards speed. The reason why Kabuto and Dosu were able to get the drop on him was because he wasn't fast enough._

_Difficult choices and all. He didn't even know what to do with the attribute points. The miscellaneous skills might mutate like the recipes did. But if he put points towards that, then he might be missing out on putting those points towards medical ninjutsu, or senbon, or bojutsu._

_He decided to wait on the spending of the points._

_There were also the quests to consider. He hadn't looked into the pamphlet for a while, because it hadn't had very many quests last time he checked. Now it was chock full of things. _

_Things like 'beat Lee in a fight before the exams are over', which got him a training spandex suit. Whatever that was. Or there was 'Get Kabuto's cards', which got him a boost in intelligence and an in-depth look into the next stage of the exam. He didn't even know who Kabuto was, much less how to get his cards. But the thing that garnered most of his attention was:_

Quest: Take Fu on a date.

Rewards: Depends on the quality of the date.

_So that meant that since he asked her out during the first exam, which he was only using as a way to get people talking, he could take her out on the date and get rewards for it. That begged the question of whether or not he got bonuses for asking other people out on dates._

"_Hey Fu?" Naruto asked suddenly._

"_Hm?"_

"_After we get out of here, what do you want to do for our date?"_

_Fu fell silent a little bit. "I was beginning to think that you only said that as a way to help us out during the first exam."_

"_I thought so too."_

"…_What?"_

"_Nothing. So where do you want to go?"_

"_I don't know. I've never been on a date before. What do people usually do?"_

"_Walk around a bit, see a movie or something, get dinner, then go home." Thank you Anko for seduction lessons. Looks like it's paying off in different ways than just that useless merit._

"…_Okay. I think I'd like that." Fu said._

"_Great." Naruto yawned widely, prompting Fu to do the same. "We should probably get some sleep." Naruto said quietly._

"_Yeah." Fu agreed. Although sleep didn't come to her easily that night. She was more than a little excited at the idea of going on a date with Naruto and was up most of the dark hours thinking about it._

There had also been that situation with Kiba. Naruto still didn't believe that it went the way it did.

_Kiba clapped Naruto on the back. "Looks like we made it." He, Kankuro, Naruto, and Fu were all waiting in the large, open space that held most of the personal inside. Apparently, further in there was a ping-pong table, a foosball table, a flat screen TV with gaming system, and a Dance Dance Revolution gaming set-up in a lounge area. Evidently, this tower was used often in the chunin exams and they didn't want to risk having shinobi getting bored and stir crazy._

_Sasuke and the comatose Kusa nin had been lifted off of him to be seen by professional help._

_Naruto's nose wrinkled inwards to itself. "Dude, I didn't want to mention it before, but you smell pretty terrible. Take a shower, yeah?"_

"_Well I have just been roughing it in the forest for a few days." Kiba said in deadpan._

"_No, I mean that you smell just really, really bad."_

"_What do I smell like?" Kiba asked, worried now. "Did I step in shit or something?" the dog user started checking his sandals for any sign of scat._

"_No, you smell like… balls, and sweat, and urine." Even with his newfound sensory greatness, Kiba's smell was so overpowering that he _had_ to smell like that to everyone else in the room._

_Fu stepped forward and tentatively sniffed the Inuzuka. "He doesn't smell that bad. Kind of like dog, but that's it."_

_Kiba looked at Naruto in confusion before his eyes narrowed imperceptivity. He brought Akamaru out his jacket and offered him to be smelled by Naruto. "What's Akamaru smell like?"_

"_Like… you, but mixed with blood."_

_Kiba put him back into his jacket and fished around his ninja pouch for a second. He presented a small spherical bundle wrapped in white cloth tied up in a knot at the top. "What's this smell like?"_

_It was a faint smell, one that Naruto had a tough time figuring out. "Like… purple."_

"_Purple?"_

"_Eh, you know… that flower. It's purple and helps you go to sleep."_

_Kiba half-frowned. "Lavender."_

"_That's the one! Why is this so important anyway?"_

"_Because only members of the Inuzuka clan should be able to smell the lavender. Everyone else doesn't smell anything." Fu leaned over and took a sniff as well, then looked at Naruto and shrugged._

_Oh no. Naruto's cover might be blown. "E-Eh, what are you talking about Kiba?"_

_Kiba started stroking his non-existent beard thoughtfully. "…Your last name is Uzumaki, right?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_But you're an orphan?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_Do you know who your parents were?"_

"_No."_

"_Then… there's a chance that you could be an Inuzuka. But all Inuzuka excrete a scent called musk from about the age of 8, which is what you smell on me. So… I don't know. I'll have to talk to my mom about this."_

"_Your mom?"_

"_She's the Inuzuka matriarch. She'll know what to do."_

"_Eh… what happens if I am an Inuzuka?"_

"_You might get accepted into the clan, or you just might get the honorary clan status, or nothing at all could happen. I guess there's a chance that your chakra just mutated that way."_

"_Mutated? Chakra mutates?"_

"_They talked about it in the academy. Weren't you listening?"_

"_You were?"_

_Kiba sighed into his palm. "It sounded interesting. Anyway, big picture is that humans get something wrong every once and a while when making other humans. You know, things like birth defects."_

"_Yeah."_

"_Well things go right just as often as they go wrong. You know, like a kid getting better muscle retention than his parents had the genes for."_

"_What?"_

"_Just keep listening for a second. The thing is, every so often, the things that make us, us, goes wrong and something different happens. Chakra is something that's highly mutable."_

"_So… I can smell things like this just because… of luck?" If that's true, then that's a good excuse for suddenly awakening the sharingan._

"_Well, yeah, but this isn't something that you can suddenly just 'awaken'. Have you always smelled things this way?"_

"_N-Yeah. Yeah, always." Naruto said quickly._

_Kiba seemed to buy his response. "My mom's probably going to get a doctor to look at you or something. I really don't know what I'm talking about here. Just the surface level stuff."_

"_So what do I do now?"_

"_Whatever you would do while I try and get in contact with my family. Just try not to die. You could be important."_

_Naruto Saluted. "Righto."_

_Kiba mock saluted and walked off in the direction of a few jonin, no doubt trying to get some form of communication._

"_You're an Inuzuka?" Fu asked._

"_I guess."_

"_Fucking leaf nin." Kankuro said under his breath._

"Everyone, please file into the common area in the tower." A detached, rather sickly sounding voice said from some speakers in the room that he and Fu were trying to get some sleep in.

Naruto jolted upwards at the sudden announcement, while Fu began grumbling in her sleep. "Fwah?" she asked incomprehensibly.

"People want us to go to the common area in the tower." Naruto mumbled. Fu groaned and fell out of bed onto the floor. It was a good thing she had the reflexes of a ninja and was able to orient herself, else she might have brained herself on the nearby drawer.

"I dun' wanna." She said.

Naruto flipped the covers off himself. "We have to." He was wearing a pair of toad pajamas that they had 'imported' from his house. Fu was wearing her normal shinobi garb sans the pointy bits. Apparently it was rather comfortable and resilient to getting dirty unlike most other pieces of apparel.

Naruto began walking to the door, but was nearly floored when Fu landed on his back. "I dun' wanna go." She mumbled again.

Naruto sighed and grabbed a hold of her legs, carrying her in piggyback style. "Fine, fine." He grumbled.

"Everyone, please file into the common area in the tower." The detached voice said once more.

"I got it, I got it." Naruto mumbled before yawning widely. Other doors to the rooms were starting to get opened as well. All 10 teams began walking to the place specified by the speakers. Everyone looked disgruntled at their rude awakening. The most humorous one had to be that of Karui dragging Shikamaru by the legs while he continued to snooze along the way.

In the common area, there were seven people waiting for them and a few more in the balconies above. Behind the seven was a very large statue making a handseal with its golden hands.

The hokage was there, along with a completely ripped guy that Naruto remembered seeing at a sushi restaurant, an old man that Naruto remembered helping out in the middle of the street, a kid who had a large bo staff-looking thing on his back and a scar running down his left eye, a rather plain looking man with dusty red hair, a sickly fellow who was probably the one who had talked into the intercom, and a slightly timid looking boy who had the forehead protector of Taki on it.

"Hey gramps." Naruto greeted. "How's the back *pause for yawn* treating you?"

Hiruzen looked between Naruto and Onoki. "You two know each other?"

Onoki grumbled his annoyances out.

"Is everyone here?" the sickly man asked. When nobody raised their hand to say no, he continued. "You may or may not know this, but the chunin exams this year are a little bit different than most. You have all been paired up with someone probably from a different village, or just someone that you don't know well. It's usually customary to have the exams be done in the strict 3 man team. This time is different. Does anyone know why?"

Someone in the crown coughed.

"Usually the exams are a deterrent for war." he continued on. "This is done by showcasing our best and brightest to all the nobles in the land to see. This helps the respective villages with job opportunities that the nobles would like to be enacted in the future. However, while the third exam is always the same with a round-robin type tournament, we're swapping things up. There will be a tournament, but you will be fighting it in the pairs that you're in right now."

Shikamaru had finally waken up at that point and decided to ask a question. "For what purpose? If the exams are a deterrent for war, then why are you changing it?"

"Good question from the troublesome Nara. This exam isn't a deterrent for war, it's an experiment for peace."

"Peace?" Shikamaru asked.

"If you all manage to get along and not kill your respective partners; that could be a sign that cooperation between the villages could be potentially possible. In front of you are the kage from all your respective nations, along with Shibuki of Taki. These 6 will all be watching your fights next month in the tournament style performance usual for the third exams."

Kurotsuchi pointed at Yagura. "What's he doing here? No mist ninja made it through."

"We're not being exclusionary. Now, since 10 teams made it through, this next part should be pretty even. You will all draw from a hat. In the hat there are 10 slips of paper that have a different symbol on it. If the symbol is fire, you stand next to Hokage-same. If the symbol is lightning, you stand by Raikage-sama and so on. You will all take a month long training excursion in the villages of the kage that you're standing next to. Any questions?"

"What do the tournament brackets look like?" Shikamaru asked.

"Those will be decided day of. Also note that Shibuki-sama isn't going to be accepting any ninjas for the training excursion. He's only here for symbolic reasons."

Shibuki raised a hand and feebly waved at the tired genin.

"Any more questions?" Hayate asked. When no more hands were raised, Hayate took off his bandana, grabbed a few pieces of crumpled up paper from his kunai pouch, and sprinkled them in. "Teams, form a line and pick from the bandana."

Too tired to make a fuss about it, they all walked uniformly towards the sickly man and grabbed a piece of paper.

Fire:

Naruto and Fu, Shikamaru and Karui

Wind:

Tenten and Fujitsu, Ino and Omoi

Lightning:

Gaara and Takkana, Temari and Sakura

Stone:

Sasuke and Kurotsuchi, Neji and Hinata

Water:

Kiba and Kankuro, Lee and Samui

"You can all go home or to your hotels for now. You leave in two days' time. Make sure you make the most of it."

"Hear that Fu?" Naruto asked her, still on his back. "We're going to be training together for a month."

She didn't respond at all to him. Naruto looked over his shoulder to see her properly asleep and drooling on his shoulder.

00000000

Orochimaru looked at Kabuto with interested eyes. "Oh? Well, I'm sorry to tell you, but I already have this information."

Kabuto looked surprised. "How did you know that there were three Jinchuuriki in the exam?"

"Becau- Three?"

"Yes, Naruto Uzumaki, Sabaku no Gaara, and Fu of Taki."

"So that Gaara child is a Jinchuuriki as well… that just makes my plan all the more interesting now doesn't it?"

Kabuto rubbed his neck painfully. "Yes sir." Although his body could regenerate on its own so long as he had the chakra to support it, it still hurt like a motherfucker getting your neck snapped.

"Kukuku. This just got a whole lot more interesting."

**AN/ How's it going folks? Wanna hear a funny story?**

**A clown walks into a bar and sits down next to a certain gentleman. The gentleman looks sad and the clown asks why. The gentleman responds with "I just recovered the wrong file with Word. Now five thousand words of progress of my new chapter are lost." The clown thinks for a bit before responding with "Sucks to be you."**

**Indeed it does suck for me.**

**Read and Review. Naruto crashes a party, Anko wants Naruto for an apprentice, Sasuke goes wild, the important people all make it to the tower, Naruto and Fu and have an enlightening conversation, Naruto and Kiba talk about genes and chakra, and the system for the third exam is explained.**

**Any of those things need commenting on? Well the review box is right below you to take advantage of.**

**Have a gentlemanly day**


	12. an apprenticeship and a date

**AN/ don't worry guys. Even if my data is deleted millions of times, I'll still try my best to update. I just can't stand those guys who offer an 'I don't feel like doing it anymore' when they stop working on their stories.**

**NOT GOOD ENOUGH. AT LEAST MAKE SOME SORT OF HAM-STRUNG EPILOGUE.**

**Ahem. Onto the story**

Chapter 12

Naruto slid Fu off of his shoulders and let her slump against his sofa. It was midnight when the teams were escorted out of the tower the safe way via elaborate underground tunnels, so by the time Naruto reached the apartment, it was already in the wee little hours of morning.

Naruto didn't know where Fu lived and she refused to wake up despite less than gentle prodding. So he decided that it probably wouldn't be a bad idea for her to spend the night at his place.

Naruto stumbled to his closet and brought out a felt blanket that he used in the winter to supplement his normal quilt and draped it over Fu's form. He then repositioned her body to the point where she didn't look like she fell haphazardly from someone's back into an uncomfortable position. Once he was sure she looked comfortable, he walked to his room and fell onto his bed, barely able to raise the quilt to cover himself before he fell asleep.

00000000

Noon, the next day.

Anko knocked at Naruto's door. She was giddy. Not in her usual Anko way, but in a sincere way. She was genuinely happy and began shifting the weight of her body across her feet as she waited for her student to answer the door. She even hummed a jaunty little tune while she was at it.

After a little bit of time passed, she knocked again. For some reason, she wasn't allowed to enter the tower in the forest of death to greet her student. Something about they being in the third examiner's jurisdiction while in the tower. Strange logic aside, she was forced to wait for Naruto to exit the tower on his own volition for her to ask him about becoming her apprentice.

Over the past few days, she had stewed over the decision, worried over it, wondered over it, and ultimately decided to not think about it anymore until she talked to him about it. Needless to say, this was kind of a big moment for her. Deciding to take an apprentice was no small decision for any normal jonin, add on her own insecurities on the subject matter only made it more monumental.

Why wasn't he answering? Sure, they might have gotten out at midnight, or so she heard, but it was noon now. He shouldn't be sleeping. There was no chance of him having exited either, as the freshest scent she could taste was several hours old, just about the time he would have entered the apartment.

"Naruto. It's Anko. Open the door. I've got something important to talk to you about~" She said in a sing-song voice. After waiting for a few seconds, she sweatdropped. "Oi, kid. If you don't answer soon, I'm going in through the window." She really didn't want to do that. Although going in through the window was standard shinobi operation, and she practically never used the door for anything other than kage administration, she wanted this process to be official-like. Not a case where she crashes into the room and holds out a document for him to sign with her standard Anko grin.

Well, it looks like he was forcing her hand on this one though. She walked a few steps to the nearby window and began fiddling with the lock using a long coil of wire. It was always a good idea to be prepared to break into someone's house on a moment's notice.

She stepped into the dimly lit dining room and called out. "Naruto? You can't still be asleep." She patrolled the house a little bit, trying to figure out where his room was located. On the way there, she passed a vacant sofa that had a blanket crumpled into it which looked slept in.

Anko opened a door close to the kitchen and found a strange sight awaiting her. On the bed in front of her was Naruto face up in his bed with his partner snuggled up by his side. His pajama top had been unbuttoned and Fu's hand was resting on his chest. There was a content looking smile on Fu's face.

"Naruto?" she said in surprise.

This seemed to wake him, as his eyes shot open and he looked up in surprise.

"Wow. Didn't mean to, uuhhh… I'll just leave now." Anko said with a slight blush on her face, closing the door behind her. Since when did 13 year olds start fucking each other? Sure, the life expectancy wasn't very long for shinobi, but the line had to be drawn somewhere.

"Anko?" Naruto asked in confusion before realizing his predicament. "Fu?" Naruto shrugged her arm off of him and got up. "Fu? What are you doing in my bed?" he asked her with wide eyes.

She yawned widely and got up into a sitting position. "I got cold in the night." She finally said.

"But- just- you can't just hop into someone else's bed when they're in it."

She rubbed her eyes to get the sleep out of them. "I can't?"

"No!"

She shrugged. "Sorry, didn't know." With that, she fell back onto the bed and closed her eyes once more.

Naruto probably would have gone on chastising her, but two things stopped him. One being the knowledge that she was an orphan who had lived in the woods a good portion of her life, and two being the fact that his sensei was in his house for reasons unknown.

Naruto opened the door to his room to find Anko sitting at his kitchen counter, trying not to make eye contact. "Listen kid, I have to talk to you about something important."

Naruto sat opposite her with a little bit of trepidation. She almost never spoke in a serious tone.

"Well, first off… I know that the prospect of being a ninja can be scary at times. And I also know that you and your partner would want to celebrate you passing the second stage, but…" Anko paused, words dying in her throat.

"Yeah?" Naruto asked confusedly.

"You shouldn't be having… sex, at your age."

"What are you talking about?"

Anko quirked an eyebrow. "Weren't you and Fu…?" She made the sex motions with her fingers.

Naruto blushed a bright vermillion and started expounding negatives. "No, of course not! Fu just crept into my bed when I was asleep!"

This threw Anko for a loop. "She… crept into your bed? Why did she do that? Also, why was she even sleeping in your apartment anyway? Doesn't she have a hotel to go to?"

Naruto shrugged. "I don't know. Nobody ever told her it wasn't okay to do it? And I didn't know where her hotel was, so I let her crash on the sofa."

"So what? She's an orphan then?" Anko, herself being an orphan, could attest to the fact that with nobody by your side to teach you what was and wasn't socially acceptable, then you might grow up to learn it the hard way. Horribly embarrassing experiences. Orphanages were usually just too big for the caretakers to suitably make every orphan there and teach them everything that a child would need to know for operating in the real world

"And she's lived in the woods for a few years."

Anko leaned back and sighed in relief. "Well that's a relief. I thought I was going to have to give you the whole 'responsibility' talk, then the 'practice safe sex' talk, then the 'maintaining proper romantic relationships' talk. You know, all the boring stuff." Anko grinned at her student in amusement, which drew a nervous chuckle from him.

She slapped a document on the table. It had been folded in many places already and looked like it had been carried around a lot. "What's this?" Naruto asked.

"This." Anko tapped the document in question. "Is an apprenticeship contract."

Naruto's eyes opened wide in surprise. "An apprenticeship contract? I thought that you didn't take apprentices."

"I didn't, up until I decided otherwise." She said vaguely.

Naruto picked up the document and started skimming the tightly formatted lines of legally binding words. Anko produced a pen from her coat pocket. "Basically, what it says is that I am obligated to teach you all I know in my repertoire of ninja skills and am also allowed to make some changes in your life."

Naruto stopped reading all at once and slowly looked up at his sensei. "What kind of changes?" he asked guardedly.

"Oh nothing major. Diet, training regimen, stuff that could impact your ability to learn from me."

"Anything else?"

"Nothing much. Only that I'm allowed to take you on missions without the approval of your jonin sensei."

"Will I still be a part of team 7?"

"Officially, yes. But seeing as you'll be my apprentice, you probably won't interact with them much except when you go on missions. Oh, I'm also allowed to go on the missions that you and your team go on."

"Is that it? That's not much different from being your student."

"Well, having an apprentice is a lot more time consuming and intensive than having a student. We'll be around each other a lot more from now on."

Naruto uncapped the pen and signed where the line indicated. "Okay, I trust you. Can you teach Fu stuff too?"

Anko leaned back to get a good view of the Taki nin inhabiting Naruto's bed from the doorway. She was sleeping soundly again. "Why?"

"Don't you know about the third exam?" Naruto asked.

"Is it something different from the usual tournament?"

"Tag team tournament. Fu's going to be training in Konoha with me."

"Oh." Anko said. "I guess I could teach her a few things to help you guys with your fights, but there are things that are only you can learn now that you're my apprentice."

_New Status effect: Anko's apprentice._

_Description: You are now under the guidance of Anko Mitarashi._

_Reward: Mitarashi training suit Mk. 1_

Naruto looked at the pop up window with a little bit of confusion. 'Clothes are rewards?'

"Something wrong?" she asked after she noticed the look on his face.

"…No, everything's fine. So what _did_ make you want to take apprentices?"

"That." She said pointedly. "Is none of your business?"

"It kind of is." Naruto said in deadpan.

"Now!" she said excitedly. "I need to turn this in to Hokage-sama. It should be official by tomorrow."

"Right." Naruto said before turning on the burner on the stove and getting a pan out. "I've got a few things that need doing today. Can we start training tomorrow?"

"Yup." She said with her patented Anko grin. "Meet up at the usual place at nine tomorrow. You can bring your friend if you want" Anko said before jumping out the nearest window.

Naruto grabbed a few eggs out of his refrigerator and cracked them over the pan. The smell eventually aroused the attention of a lethargic Fu.

"What was that all about?" She asked.

"Nothing much. Just became an apprentice to Anko."

Fu nodded and sat at the counter. "So what's for breakfast?"

00000000

Tsume had a blank look as she read over the long list of data pertaining to Naruto's DNA, chakra composition, and newfound traits. This made Naruto very nervous. The way Kiba explained chakra mutation made it seem like it just _happened_ every once and a while.

Nope. Chakra had the ability to mutate and give the user fantastical new abilities, but the chances of this happening were somewhere within one in ten million. Not only that, but it always happened at birth. There were no recorded cases of someone's chakra mutating during puberty.

Tsume tossed the piece of paper to the side. Currently, he and Inuzuka matriarch were sitting in a small hospital room. The doctor who had drawn his blood and given the subsequent results to Tsume had left them alone for the time being.

"…Kiba said that you had always smelled things this way?"

Naruto rubbed the back of his neck nervously. By the tone of doubt she used when asking this, Naruto assumed that it shouldn't be a possible situation. "Kind of. It's been a lot stronger lately."

Tsume nodded and looked to the side again. "Look kid, I'm going to be straight with you. This whole situation." She made circling movements with her hand in Naruto's direction. "With the newfound sense of smell and hearing, it doesn't happen."

"It doesn't happen… very often?"

"Nope. It just doesn't happen. Your DNA was the exact same as it was a few months ago when you got your last check up, so that means that you are still you. But your chakra is different now. That doesn't happen."

Naruto sat quietly, taking it in. "So what now?"

She sighed laboriously and clutched her forehead. "I don't fucking know. Hokage-sama has a lot on his plate as of late, adding this on would only exacerbate things. The way I see it is that I have three options. One, pretend like this never happened and walk away from it, washing my hands of responsibility. Two, I can accept you as an honorary member of the Inuzuka. And three, I can accept you as a full-fledged Inuzuka. There's no way I'm doing either one or three. Because I'm not a pansy that walks away from responsibility and you also don't have a lick of Inuzuka blood in you, which leaves us with option two."

"Honorary clan status?"

"Kiba told me that you are the entire reason why Akamaru is still alive today. You are loyal to a fault and don't wish to endanger your comrades. But most importantly, your nose and hearing are on par with that of a ninken. Giving you honorary clan status wouldn't be so farfetched an idea to the other clansmen."

"What is honorary clan status?"

"Basically, you become an Inuzuka in everything but name. You will be allowed to live in the compounds, take a canine partner, and learn the clan techniques."

Well this was an unintended but wholly fantastic outcome of getting sensory powers. "Really?"

She smirked at his excitement. "Yup." She leaned back in her chair. "This is going to be so much paperwork."

Naruto got up from where he was sitting. "Is that everything?"

"I guess. Just remember, we don't accept disloyalty. If you hurt a comrade on purpose for selfish gain, it won't matter if you can sniff out gold, because your ass will be out of the clan faster than an unladen swallow."

Naruto nodded vigorously. "You won't have to worry about a thing."

She smiled a little at his enthusiasm. "Then let me be the first to cordially welcome you to the clan. Come over to the compound whenever in the next few days to make it official. The tournament takes place next month correct?" Naruto nodded. "Then that means you are going to have to be taking crash courses on Inuzuka techniques, which, might I add, are secret. Don't tell anyone about them or else we have the legal right to lock you up in a dog kennel for as long as you live."

_New Status effect: Honorary Inuzuka._

_Description: you have been accepted into the ranks of the Inuzuka family._

_Reward: Access to Inuzuka techniques, right to take a canine partner, the ability to marry clan members, Inuzuka training suit Mk. 1_

Tsume got up and walked out the door with a parting "See ya at the clan, kid."

Naruto got up a few seconds later and followed her out of the building, giddy with excitement. He had a family now!

00000000

Naruto's apartment, 4ish

Naruto stared at the guidebook he was holding open. He knew he probably shouldn't be using attribute points right now, considering what they could do for him, but he had to know what would happen when he maxed one out. Naruto put 15 points towards his seduction skill, the skill closest to being maxed out, putting it at a solid 50/50.

_Mutations available. Pick two_

_Perk: Harem ending_

_Description: All the females that are romantically interested in you and all the females you are romantically interested in have lowered reservations to the concept of sharing you._

_Perk: Animal magnetism_

_Description: You start to excrete a substance close to that of animal pheromones constantly. All the females around you regardless of romantic affiliation feel sexually aroused by your presence, while all the males around you feel irrational anger by your presence._

_Skill Tree: Horndog_

_Description: You start to develop the skills in seducing women with the express purpose of sexual intercourse._

_Skill Tree: Devotion_

_Description: You start to develop the skills in seducing women with the express purpose of starting and maintaining lasting relationships._

Well it looks like they do mutate. Not only that, but they make more skill trees for him to master.

It didn't take Naruto long to narrow down the two he wanted. Making half the population irrationally angry whenever he was around wasn't exactly the best of things for a shinobi to have to put up with and the Horndog tree just sounded… wrong. So Naruto tapped on the Devotion skill trait and the Harem ending skill trait. Naruto wasn't sure about the Harem ending skill trait, but it was the lesser of three evils.

"Yo."

Naruto started heavily from his readings to see Kakashi standing over him. "Kakashi-sensei? Where have you been?"

Kakashi scratched his cloth clad cheek disinterestedly. "I told you. I was on a mission of vital importance to the Village Hidden in the Leaves."

"Yeah, yeah. You were probably just scoping out some more porn. Why did you break into my apartment?"

"I need to tell you something."

"There's a door."

"An astute observation."

Naruto glowered at the aloof man. "What do you need to tell me?"

"Well, for the time being, team 7 is being split up amongst the hidden villages. I won't be able to teach all three of you fairly, so I decided that I'm going to go to the land of lighting to help Sakura, seeing as she needs the most help out of all three of you."

"Okay… I guess that's cool."

"Are you sure? Is Anko still willing to teach you?"

Naruto smiled. "Yeah. In fact, I just signed an apprenticeship contract with her."

Kakashi's one visible eyebrow shot into this hairline. "An apprenticeship? With her?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you inform me?"

Naruto just stared at the man in wonder. "Why do you think? Why's it such a big deal anyway? I know that she's going to be teaching me a lot of stuff and we're going to be spending more time with each other, but that's basically just an amped up version of what I was going through two weeks ago."

"I'm more surprised it was _her_ that took you on as an apprentice. Not only that, but I don't think you understand just how much time you two are going to be spending together. Apprenticeships last from anywhere within a year to a lifetime and you two are going to be around each other for most of your waking hours for that time. And you want to spend that time with _her_?"

"Why do you say it like that? Sure, she's intense sometimes, but she's the only one around here who's bothered to teach me anything!"

Kakashi stared hard at the boy. "You say that like I haven't."

"You taught us, team 7, one chakra control exercise and some teamwork routines. That's it."

"Teamwork is the most important thing that you three need to work on."

Naruto cupped his chin in hand. "Want to know something Kakashi-sensei? Akamaru, Kiba's dog, almost died in the forest."

"What does this have to do with anything?"

"The reason he's not dead is because I saved him."

Kakashi didn't know how to respond to that.

"I saved him because I knew how to treat wounds in the field. I saved him because Anko taught me how to treat wounds in the field. I saved him, and because I saved him, I'm not dead." Naruto said vindictively. "When I saved him, Kiba wanted to thank me by giving me some animals for finishing that phase of the exam. If he hadn't gone out looking for me, then he wouldn't have found me and a few others about to be killed by some sound nin. The point is, because Anko was willing to teach me that stuff, I'm still alive."

Kakashi's words died in his throat.

Naruto sighed into his hands. "Look, I know that teamwork is important. But teamwork isn't what saved Akamaru. Teamwork isn't what taught me how to save Akamaru. Teamwork isn't what saved me from those sound nin, well I guess it kind of was, but you get the point… Sakura does need help. So could you please help her?"

Kakashi stared at Naruto for the longest time. "Yeah, I think I can help her."

"Like, really help her? Not just teamwork help her."

"…I'll help her."

"Cool." Naruto got up from the sofa where he was sitting at and headed for his room. "Is there anything else? I'm kind of busy."

"Just wanted to inform you of where I was going to be for the next month. What are you busy with?"

"Looking for clothes."

"Clothes for what?"

"My date."

Kakashi made an aahhh'ing sound. "Did Sakura finally say yes then?"

"Nope. It's with Fu."

"Fu? Oh yes, your partner for the next phase. So have you finally gotten over Sakura then?"

"No, I still like her. This is just a date, you know."

This confused Kakashi greatly. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you know. It's a date. Something where two people go and do stuff together in an effort to gauge whether or not they would be a suitable partner in the future. Learned that during my seduction lessons. We're teammates, so we're just hanging out."

"You're taking seduction lessons? Why would you do that?"

Naruto waved him off. "It's a pretty long story, but it didn't work out like I had hoped."

"You were taking them to get Sakura to like you?"

"Something like that. Now which shirt should I wear? Orange, or dark blue?" Naruto switched the shirts over his torso to allow Kakashi a good understanding of what he would look like in either.

Kakashi shrugged. "Orange, I guess."

Naruto clicked his tongue. "Dark blue it is then."

00000000

Yugao Uzuki, codenamed 'cat' for now, was looking at a rather strange sight. This sight being an acquaintance of hers spying down at the street below from a vantage point among shadowed rooftops while mumbling to herself.

"What business do you have on the rooftops?" Cat asked business-like.

Anko very nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of her voice. "BWAH! What the? Oh! Hello Yugao-chan, nice evening isn't it?" She asked with a smiling face.

"That's a rather affectionate suffix."

"You're damn right it is. Now what is it you need? I'm just a wee bit busy here."

"What business do you have on the rooftops?"

"Spying."

"Spying?"

"Or I guess you could call it supervising."

"Supervising?"

"No, wait. I am determining the progress of my new apprentice."

"A new apprentice? What are you determining the progress of?"

Anko pointed at a pair walking down the street together. They were licking away at some ice cream cones and talking to each other amiably.

"I don't… I don't understand."

"That." She said, gesturing to Naruto. "Is my new apprentice."

"Okay, I got that. What are you determining the progress of?"

"Seduction."

"…Seduction?"

"Seduction."

"You're teaching your apprentice seduction?"

"He practically begged to learn it."

Yugao got another good look at the walking couple. "That's seduction? It looks like an innocent little date to me."

"Ah, that's where you are simultaneously right and wrong, Yugao-chan. Seduction is the practice of getting a person's guard down in order to extract secrets from them."

"So… you taught him how to date properly? That isn't really the image that pops into my head when I hear the word 'seduction'."

"Well what else am I going to teach him? How to pick up women at a bar? He's 13. Plus there's a lot more than just knowing how to date when it comes to seduction."

"How so?"

"Everything from asking the right questions at the right time all the way down to how you hold yourself. See that?" She asked pointing at Naruto.

"He looks… normal?"

"Nope. He's constantly keeping his back straight, asking questions that he knows that she would know and or care about, and always has a carefree expression on his face. Show's that he's strong and reliable, but not intimidating. And she seems to enjoy it too. I'm so proud of him." She said while wiping away a non-existent tear from her face.

"So what information is he trying to extract?"

"Huh?"

"The information. You just said how seduction was supposed to get information by lowering the mental defenses of people."

"Oh that? Fuck if I know."

Cat went silent for a bit, puzzling out Anko's answer. "So you really are just spying on your apprentice while he's taking a girl out on a date?"

"Practically." She said, eyes glued to the two laughing Jinchuuriki.

Yugao would have facepalmed if not for the mask on her face. "The village is on high alert because your ex-sensei infiltrated the exams and injured a few prospective genin. So I would appreciate it if you didn't use the rooftops for trivial matters." Yugao said coldly.

"Okay, okay. Geeze. What crawled up your ass and died?" Anko jumped down from her position and began stalking her apprentice from afar.

Yugao jumped away from the scene and continued her rounds, pretending like she didn't just have that extremely annoying conversation.

00000000

Fu was wearing a flowery dress. It was short, ending mid-thigh, and billowy. She was wearing an orange clip in her hair to keep her bangs from obscuring her vision. On her shoulder was a white satchel. Fu was also in the process of laughing at a story that Naruto had told.

Naruto was wearing his usual orange jumpsuit pants, but had forsaken the jacket for a dark blue T-shirt. He was grinning nervously and blushing slightly from her uproarious laughter, seeing as the story he told was somewhat embarrassing to him.

Naruto was doing a lot of things subconsciously on the date he was on with her. Things that just came as second nature to him. In a deeper level of his brain, he would probably liken it to the skill trait he just maxed out. Regardless, he was doing a lot of things he really shouldn't have been doing.

That didn't mean that the date was going badly, far from it, only that he was doing things without thinking about them which could majorly affect his life.

Naruto's realm of conscious thinking noted that the date he and Fu were on was just a date between friends and partners, getting to know each other better so they could work well when the time came to fight other teams. But Naruto was subconsciously doing things that one would do when trying to woo a prospective partner. Subtly drawing her attention to his developing muscles, not telling any stories that were too bawdy, listening attentively when she was talking and not interrupting her. Things that people do when on a serious date, not a hang-out between friends.

Once Fu's laughter subsided, she grinned and looked at Naruto. "So what should we do now?"

Naruto picked Fu up from the hotel she was staying at around 4:30 or so. They spent about 45 minutes going and eating at Ichiraku's, a place with good food and a nice atmosphere. Then they walked around bit, talking about this or that and getting the odd ice cream cone.

Naruto looked at the sky. The sun was going down, starting to paint the sky with oranges and pinks. "It is getting pretty late…"

"Oh, come on. One more thing? Please." Fu looked at Naruto with puppy dog eyes and made little whimpering noises.

Naruto grinned stupidly. "Okay, one more thing. Oh! I know what we can do."

"Really? What is it?"

"Follow me." Naruto grinned before shooting off with the speed of a ninja.

Fu had no problem with keeping up with him. She began smiling uncontrollably. It was fun being around him. She was _having _fun. She couldn't remember the last time she had just had fun with someone.

Naruto looked back to make she was keeping up with him, then seeing the look on her face, he asked "What's up?"

"Nothing." She replied, still smiling. "Nothing at all."

Her smiling proved to be intoxicatingly communicable, as Naruto began smiling as well. They soon arrived at a set of stairs where they had no trouble climbing upwards. The two Jinchuuriki climbed quickly in silence as Naruto led the way for Fu.

Finally, they made it to a rocky area that had a good view of the entire city of Konoha. "We" Naruto stated "Are on top of the Hokage monument."

"Really?" Fu hadn't been paying much attention to where she was going, just trying to keep Naruto in her sights and focusing on foot holds.

"Yup." Naruto sat down on an orange slab of rock. "This is the head of the Fourth." He patted an area for her to sit at beside him.

"Wow." She said, sitting down next to her partner. "The sunset's really beautiful."

"It is." Naruto stated. "I come up here to think sometimes."

They sat together in silence as they watched the sun disappear below the horizon line. The sprawling buildings below were cloaked in pinks and oranges from the sun's refracting rays.

Naruto really like Fu. When he first met her, she was withdrawn and seldom spoke out unless she was spoken to. But over their period of partnership, she began to emerge from her shell a little bit, showing the nice, caring, girl that she was. He also really liked spending time with her. She was probably the only normal female influence on his life right now. Not like Anko, who went out of her way to place him in uncomfortable situations, or Sakura who was very physically violent. Nope. She was normal, and Naruto really liked that normalcy.

Once the sun had properly set, bathing the world in darkness once more, Naruto got up and offered his hand to Fu. She took it and used his hand to pull herself up. "Do you need an escort to your hotel?" Naruto asked.

Fu looked at him in confusion. "What are you talking about? I checked out this afternoon."

This threw Naruto for a loop. "But… why? Isn't your village sponsoring your stay here?"

She shrugged. "I thought I was staying with you for the month."

"Why did you think that?"

"I woke up on _your_ sofa."

"That's because I didn't know where your hotel was to check you in."

Fu groaned out in disappointment. "Am I going to have to check back in again?"

"No, no. You don't have to do that. I could probably grab a futon from the closet. But where's all your luggage?"

Fu gestured to her satchel. "A few sets of clothes and some bathroom stuff."

"That's it? For a month that's all you have?"

"What else do I need? I'm not really much on material wealth."

Okay, so maybe she wasn't _that_ normal. Naruto ceded "Okay, okay. You can live in my apartment for the month. So how do you want to get back? Walking, or piggyback like last time?"

Fu didn't waste any time hopping on Naruto's back faster than he could react. "I think I like this way of transportation better."

Naruto chuckled a little bit. "You know I was joking, right?"

"You might be joking, but I'm not." Fu stated with a mischievous grin.

Naruto clapped his hands on Fu's back thighs to make sure she couldn't fall off. "Then you better prepare yourself, because we're going to bumpy way back."

Fu clasped her arms around Naruto's neck and whispered in his ear. "Oh, I was born prepared."

Naruto smirked and jumped off the head of The Fourth. Yup, this month was going to be an eventful one.

**AN/ This chapter's a bit smaller than the last one, but I didn't know if there was anything else to put in.**

**Next chapter is going to be the start of training, where Naruto's daily routine is going to be defined. There will also be a look at how the other people are doing with their partners. Oh, and I'll be going more in-depth with the whole 'honorary Inuzuka thing'.**

**Other than that, Read and Review on anything you might have questions on.**

**Before you leave, I have a question for you. What is **_**your**_** definition of filler content? I've heard that term before for a lot of different things, some I agree with and some I don't.**

**For example: my definition of filler is any content that doesn't accomplish anything. I don't care if it wasn't in the manga, if it helped to build character relationships or advance the plot in any meaningful way, then it isn't filler to me.**

**Have a gentlemanly day. Don't be shy to answer.**


	13. a start to the month of training

Chapter 13

**AN/ to all those worried about me giving Naruto a ninja dog, don't worry. I'm not stupid enough to give Naruto a ninja dog. That's mess up the whole pacing of the story.**

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: PASSED THE FIRST CHUNIN EXAM PHASE_

_Reward: a detailed map and explanation of the second exam_

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: PASSED THE SECOND CHUNIN EXAM PHASE_

_Reward: a detailed list of all participating members of the third exam._

_Quest completed: Take Fu on a date_

_Reward: +10 water elemental affinity. +5 Jinchuuriki shape manipulation. +5 Jinchuuriki control_

On the bed that Naruto was sitting at, new matter was spat into existence as soon as he read the achievement's that he had recently gotten. One was a map that had comprehensive and comprehensible scribbling's on it, while the other was a small pamphlet similar in size to the bingo book.

This fact was rather confusing to Naruto. He vaguely remembered scrolling past those two achievements, one in the forest while he was scrambling for a means of getting back to Fu, the other when he was determining what attribute point he should get maxed out.

Only now was he getting the rewards for the achievements, which really confused him. The only thing that changed was that he actually read the achievement and the reward. The one time that he played an RPG he remembered always scrolling past the achievements because in his mind, they were worthless to him. Now, he had to figure out why he was getting the rewards now instead of then.

Naruto fell back on his bed and sighed in confusion. If only he had someone smart enough to explain this all to him. Someone like Shikamaru. He's smart. Way smarter than Naruto at any rate.

The sound of sizzling bacon assaulted his ears. One thing he learned about Fu during their date was that she was remarkably good at cooking meat, or anything that had to do with a heated pan and food. As that was her primary way of cooking food and getting nutrition in the woods. Naruto shut the book with a sense of finality. He really had to look through it in more detail at another time, but right now he had to get ready for morning training with Anko and Fu.

Naruto grimaced a little at remembering how he woke up. Fu, despite knowing that it wasn't socially acceptable to crawl into the bed of someone that they weren't extremely close to, decided to do it anyway. Her reason for doing so was simple. It helped her to sleep when she was sharing a bed, so she decided to share a bed. The notion came from a sense of pragmatism that Naruto had trouble trying to comprehend, but regardless of how he felt about it, it looked like it was going to be a continuous thing with her.

There was also the matter of his new clothing. He looked towards his closet, which now had two more outfits inside of it bereft of his doing anything to put them there.

One was a mesh overshirt paired with some arm and shin guards and a loose-fitting pair of cargo shorts full of so many pockets. But this wasn't a normal outfit by any stretch of the imagination. On the back inside of the shirt was a small square that when he pressed on it, a window popped up.

_Mitarashi training suit Mk. 1_

_Description: a suit similar to that of Mitarashi Anko. It has free reign of movement coupled with a large amount of pockets for keeping a hold of any ninja items._

_Effect: +10 flexibility, +10 speed_

Next to that one was a suit kind of like Kiba's, but not very. It was an orange light jacket that had no hood and fur along on the collar. There was also no zipper or buttons that could hold the jacket closed. Underneath that, there was light gray baggy pants. There was no undershirt.

_Inuzuka training suit Mk. 1_

_Description: a suit worn by the members of the Inuzuka clan that use the vulpini members of the canidae family for their symbiotic partnership._

_Effect: +10 speed, +10 strength._

Whatever the case was, he felt silly when he put them on. Seeing as the change in base stats wouldn't really affect his training, he decided to go with what he was comfortable with for the time being.

Although the stat changes were so good that he'd definitely have to wear some form of them during the actual tournament. Four levels' worth of stat bonuses were definitely worth looking silly.

Naruto was really enthused by learning this because CLOTHES HAVE STATS ON THEM! That means that if he gets good as a tailor, that he could make stat altering clothing. The simple fact that the clothing has stats on them completely validated his reasons for doing the whole tailorship enterprise other than a source of revenue.

Naruto got out of bed and to the source of cooking food. He had quite a lot to accomplish that day and was very thankful for shadow clones to do most of them for him.

00000000

Anko was sitting in lotus position in front her student and his partner for the next exam. She was nervous. Anyone would be if they were beginning to mold a potential young lad into a proper and prim shinobi. Anko especially due to her continued reservations on the subject. Regardless, she had to start somewhere and at some time. You know what they say, no time like the present.

"Okay you two lucky little kids. Run me down on what you know, what you wish to accomplish, and what you're working on. Fu, you can keep any village secrets that you want, but to teach you well, I'm going to need something to work with."

Fu nodded cheerfully. She had been in happy spirits ever since her little date with Naruto. "I know kenjutsu, the water sword jutsu, my scale powder jutsu, and a little bit on how to do Jinchuuriki form well. I want to learn more about kenjutsu and my Jinchuuriki form. And I'm working on my kenjutsu right now."

"What's this scale powder jutsu? I haven't heard of it."

"It's the same as the hidden mist jutsu, but I use a little bit Nanabi's power with it. This makes me exhale a lot of tiny little scales that refract the light around it. It's used as a distraction and can also be ignited into explosions. The previous Jinchuuriki of the Nanabi made it and wrote it down into scrolls."

"Wow. That sounds really cool. Now I won't need to teach anyone supplementary jutsu or distraction jutsu." She turned to Naruto. "Can you do anything like that, kid?"

"Nope. I know the basic academy jutsu, the shadow clone jutsu, a little bit of bojutsu, a little bit of senbonjutsu, I'm getting pretty good with medical ninjutsu, and some side stuff like trap making. I want to work on getting my combat abilities up." Although the previous weeks were really good to Naruto in way of getting him essential shinobi skills, he hadn't really increased his combat potential very much. Since the tournament was going to be two on two fighting, he was going to need to increase his fighting abilities.

"Okay, I can work with that. What are you working on right now?"

"Currently? Right now I am… Working at the hospital for medic ninjutsu; using the scrolls I got for bojutsu and senbonjutsu, but I'm kind of running out of stuff to learn, so I'm going to need to get the more advanced scrolls for those; I'm working with you on stuff, hopefully taijutsu; I'm at a tailor and a blacksmith, working on making stuff; I've got a clone or two at my house, cooking stuff; I'm working on jobs with clones to get me some money; and I'm going to be enrolled at the academy for business lessons."

If there were any flies buzzing around, they would have flown into Anko's and Fu's mouths. "I get that you have shadow clones." Anko finally said after gaining her wits. "But how are you able to move? The haptic feedback would have fried the mind of any jonin in the world from doing that."

Naruto shrugged. "I don't know. I get pretty bad headaches from doing it, but I should be good with my medical ninjutsu."

"Why are you at a blacksmith and a tailor?" Fu asked.

"To make stuff." Naruto said simplistically.

"And the business lessons?" Anko asked.

"To effectively run my business."

"When did you start running a business?"

"A few weeks ago." Naruto said with a grin. It was fun watching their confusion and disbelief run through its cycles. "It's the tailor place." Naruto added.

Anko pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation. "New information aside, I need to get a good feel for Fu's fighting style. So you two are going to spar." She said, pointing to the two Jinchuuriki.

"Okay." Fu said in a chipper tone before getting up and spawning double water swords.

Naruto unsheathed his bo staff warily. "Are those going to be sharp? I don't want to get my left arm cut off."

Somewhere, in an alternate dimension, a different Naruto sneezed furiously.

"Nah, don't worry. I can change their sharpness." Fu stated before getting into her kenjutsu stance.

Naruto got into his own bojutsu stance. This might not end well for him. From what he's noticed from her fighting people, she was really good at close combat stuff. Fu was deadly with her swords, kicked ass without them, and had some sort of explody cloud jutsu in her sleeves.

"As soon as I understand your fighting styles, I'll create a training regimen." Anko said with a smile. "So hop to it."

Fu charged at Naruto with a practiced ease. Her movements flowed across the field gracefully, her swords carefully guarded her blind spots. She definitely had experience with sort of thing.

Naruto gulped and began fending off the flurry of blows sent his way. He really should have worn those clothes.

00000000

A Naruto clone looked around the compounds around him. The Inuzuka estates were made up of several very large buildings, a few smaller ones, a huge grounds for their dogs, and several dog specific stores. A vet, a behavioral counseling clinic, a food store and so on.

Every so often, he'd catch a person staring at him. They'd look away as soon as Naruto tried to initiate eye contact. Everyone stared at him, always. It was just something that happened that Naruto likened to him being the Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki. But now it was kind of different for him. When people stared at him, it was more like they were… curious or intrigued, but didn't want to seem that way.

"Oi, Kiba, what's up with everyone? They're all staring at me." Naruto asked the Inuzuka by his side.

"Huh? Well, you're the new honorary member of the Inuzuka clan. Of course they're going to be curious."

"People know that?" He thought it would take a little longer for the thing to go through what with how exasperated Tsume seemed when she talked about the paperwork.

"Of course they know. Mom was pretty excited about it."

"She was? Didn't seem that way back at the hospital."

Kiba shrugged. "Dunno. Your chakra mutated recently, which hasn't ever happened in recorded history. Mom wants to be the first to figure that out."

"So… what? She's a scientist?"

Kiba waved him off. "Nah, she's just really smart with genetics. Knowing how to mutate chakra during puberty will give the clan more clout and all that."

"Shouldn't she go to the village?"

"She would, but the Inuzuka clan has the best instruments for genetic engineering. Seeing as she's the best at genetics and she has the best tools for it, she decided to not bother the village unless she gets something."

"I guess that makes sense." Naruto said as he looked around the compound. Everyone had an animalistic vibe to them. Must be an Inuzuka thing. Every so often though, he'd see someone who looked like just a normal citizen. No fang marks on their cheeks or anything. "Hey, how common is this honorary Inuzuka thing?"

"It's not… uncommon, I guess."

"Well what's it used for usually? I doubt everyone has a mutation during puberty."

"Our clan is pretty big. About two hundred members. There's enough genetic diversity between us that if we're careful about our lineage, we can intermarry without any side effects. But there isn't really a lot of choice in the way of partners. So, if someone wants to marry outside of the clan, then they can appeal for an honorary Inuzuka membership. It's good for keeping the gene pool big and unless things are complicated, it keeps the need for arranged marriages low."

"Okay… I think I get it. Geez, what's up with you Inuzuka and your genetics?"

Kiba made wide gesticulations towards the myriad of dogs wandering the district. "In case you hadn't noticed, we Inuzuka's like dogs. Knowing basic genetics is kind of a calling card of ours. You know, because of dog breeding and shit."

Naruto held up his hands in defeat. "Okay okay. No need to get so heated. Where are the kennels anyway?"

Kiba pointed directly at the building in front of him. "We're here. And I'm not heated, you're just stupid."

"Same difference. What am I supposed to be doing here again?"

"We're getting you a partner. It's customary that any shinobi Inuzuka get paired with a companion early in their life. You're going to have to make up for lost time."

They walked into the kennels together. Kiba only had to give the receptionist a short explanation and they were on their way into the inner parts of it.

The back room had lots of puppies all playing around with each other. Big, small, black, white, every dog of every breed was there, sans the show dogs of course.

"Now what?" Naruto asked.

"Now you walk in. if any of them speak to you, feel free to take it."

"What do you mean by speak? Like, will they talk to me or something? Because that sounds so cool."

"No, dipshit. I was talking about… eh, never mind. Just take one that you like and we can go. I need to meet Kankuro at the gates in about an hour."

"Fine, fine." Naruto waded into the pool of playing puppies. They didn't take any notice of him, instead going on playing their own game between his legs. Naruto didn't know what to choose. There was a pit bull that looked like it would grow up to be one mean companion. A beagle that looked like it would be able to sniff things out good. A great dane that looked like it'd be able to run really quickly. But he didn't really feel anything watching them play.

Naruto gave them all once over again to see if he missed any. His eyes caught the sight of another little puppy off in the corner, silently chewing on a squeaky little chew toy. Naruto walked over to it and when he got close enough, the little dog's eyes went up to look at him. They were slit eyes, kind of like Kiba's.

Naruto picked the little guy up. It had pointed ears and a bushy tail. Its coat was a brownish blackish redish mixture. "Oi Kiba, what breed is this?"

"Red."

"Red what?"

"Red fox."

"You have foxes? I thought you were a dog clan."

"We're a canine clan. Foxes are canine. They might be pretty distant relatives from dogs and wolves, but they're still canine."

Naruto looked back at the little guy. It was certainly cute. The teeth looked needle thin as they bit into the chew toy. He shrugged. It's not like there were any other dogs out there that spoke to him, might as well get the fox.

"I'm taking him." Naruto said to Kiba, who nodded in return.

"You sure he's a guy?"

Naruto lifted the fox above his head so he could get a clear look. "I'm taking her."

"Cool." Naruto and Kiba walked out of the kennel, making idle chit chat about the final part of the exams along the way.

"You have an idea for a name?" Kiba asked.

"Why don't I call her Fox?"

"No, it has to be something cool. Something like Daidaimaru."

"Great orange? Nah, you keep your naming conventions, I'll keep mine."

"You don't have naming conventions." Kiba pointed out. "Seriously, what are you naming her?"

"How about Kyu?"

"Cute." Kiba said sarcastically.

"Aka."

"Something more complicated that just 'red'."

"Oh, I got it. Kashikoi."

"Wise? That's a weird name."

"I meant Sharp. You know, like her ears." Naruto said, gently stroking the small fox's ears. She was looking around the world fearfully. She obviously hadn't been outside very often. Naruto snuggled the fox closer to his body, hoping that would make it less scared, or at least more comforted.

"Whatever man. You need to work on your kanji. I need to head home and get my stuff for the Land of Water. Head to the vet for instructions on how to look after animals. My sister should be there."

Naruto held out a fist to be bumped. "See ya in a month. Don't die."

Kiba tapped knuckles with his new clan member. "Same to you."

00000000

Across Konoha, another clone opened the door of a small tailor.

"Read the sign. We're closed!" An exasperated sounding teenager said from the back room.

"Even for the owner?" Naruto asked cheekily.

Sounds of rustling cloth amid light cursing. Hikigaya poked his head through the door separating the back room from the front room. He looked… not good. His normally dead fish eyes were blackened with lack of sleep and he had a pasty demeanor. He also looked really pissed.

"You fuck." He hissed out. "Next time you want to take the chunin exams, why don't you tell me. When you didn't report in, I had to ask around the jonin bar to see if any of them saw you. Do you know how scary jonin are?" Naruto made to interrupt, but Hikigaya cut him off. "Not only that, but the work load is more than one person can handle. There's a backlog and people are getting pretty pissed. You're going to be working on repairs until there aren't any left to do. Understand?"

Naruto rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Yeah, yeah. Sorry about that, kinda slipped my mind. What are you going to do while I'm working on repairs?"

"Sleeping." Hikigaya dropped off the leather smock he used for keeping hold of his tailoring tools on the counter. "I haven't slept since yesterday."

Naruto picked up the slightly oversized smock and put it on. Whatever he thought he'd be doing as a boss since he bought the place, taking orders from his older subordinate was not one of them. Whatever, he probably should have told Hachiman what he was doing anyway, so it was kind of on him.

Although he was going to work on repairs, he also had to make a piece of clothing. A full piece of clothing, not like the others where Hikigaya showed him how to do various stitches for the different areas of the cloth separately. If there was a way that wearing clothing that he made enhanced his base stat points, he'd have to allocate more shadow clones to the shop.

00000000

At a certain hotel, Takkana was fearfully packing her bags.

Ever since she began the second exam, she'd been constantly afraid of that red haired kid. Gaara no Sabaku. He was like a fucking demon.

As soon as the gates opened and they began walking into the forest, Sand crept along her form and engulfed her completely. There was no time to scream, it happened so fast. After that, she was subjugated to being held around in that sandy cocoon while Gaara walked around the forest, killing teams and collecting animals.

It was difficult to keep track of time while in the cocoon, but when she was released, she was in the tower where they were supposed to stay at without having fallen unconscious. The jonin were shocked enough that they immediately escorted her to a medic area. There was nothing wrong with her. Not even a scratch on her body.

Regardless of how safe she ended up at the end of the exam, she was still very frightened of the red haired genin. Nothing seemed to impact him emotionally. Nothing other than the prospect of talking to his 'mother'.

Even if they were teammates, she knew that he saw her as more of a liability than anything. From the sounds of intermittent screaming she heard muffled though the sand was anything to go by, then he was probably the most dangerous genin in the exams.

No problem with killing, no problem with doing things to her against her will, no problem with talking to his 'mother'. Nope, no matter what, she was going to have to keep her distance from him.

The only thing she took comfort in the situation she was in was that Gaara probably knew that he needed alive at least until the end of the third exam. After that, she only hoped that there were enough strong people to keep him from killing her indiscriminately. She knew she couldn't even hold a candle to him when it came to sheer strength and sense of presence.

Why couldn't she get that weapon expert girl for a teammate, like Fujitsu? Or a happy-go-lucky blonde, like Fu?

Takkana shook her head to dismiss those thoughts. Whatever the case was, she'd have to tough the situation out. They were heading to foreign soils. Gaara might be a psychopath, but she just hoped he wasn't stupid enough to kill someone in a different country.

Now she only had to find the demonic child. She hadn't seen him since they left the tower and didn't know where he lived.

Well wasn't this going to fun?

00000000

Tenten was packing her bags as well when she heard the door to her forge open. She looked up suddenly in excitement. There was only one person who had the keys to the forge other than her and her father.

When she came down the stairwell and into the forge, she was met with the visage of Naruto putting a heavy leather apron on. Naruto noticed her presence and waved. "Hey Tenten. Sorry that I just kinda let myself in, but I knocked and no one answered."

"Don't worry, it's fine." Tenten said. She was wearing her normal pink Chinese shirt with her baggy pants. Say what you will about shinobi wear, but they were made to be comfortable. "So what are you doing here? Dad doesn't need any help and you should probably be training with your teammate."

Naruto grabbed a hammer and some tongs. "The entity you are talking to is but a shadow clone." He said ornately. "Right now, I'm doing a lot of things. One of which is working with my partner, another of which is talking to you while I try to make a serviceable kunai." Naruto grabbed an ingot and threw it into the heating oven.

This statement confused Tenten. "What do you mean simultaneously?"

"Shadow clones. Whatever they experience, I experience when they dispel."

"Is that what shadow clones are? Back at the sushi place, you made it seem like just another clone variation."

"Nope. They're really good for training because I can be here working on my smith stuff and my training stuff at the same time."

"So… wait. Are _you_ a shadow clone?"

"Of course I am. Training with my sensei would definitely require a body more sturdy than one that dispels after one hit."

"That sounds so cool. Can you teach me it?"

"Nope. It's super dangerous. The only reason I'm able to do it is because I have a lot of chakra."

"I have a lot chakra too." Tenten said indignantly. "I had the largest reserves of my class."

"No, I mean I have like… a butt-load of chakra. More than I should have."

Tenten didn't seem too happy about him not teaching her the jutsu, but let it drop anyway. "So how's your partnership going? Is she nice? I didn't get to talk to her much during the examinations."

"Fu? Oh she's really nice. She has absolutely no idea what personal space means, but at least she's a good cook."

"E-Eh, what? She cooks for you?"

"She did this morning. She's crashing at my apartment for the month."

"Why is she doing that?"

Naruto stopped what he was doing and stared off into space for a bit. "You know, I really have no idea. Miscommunication I guess."

"And the personal space thing?"

"She creeps into my bed at night."

"O-Oh. She does, does she?

"Yeah, it's really weird."

"You know, if you don't like it, you should probably tell someone. Like an ambassador or something."

Naruto shrugged. "It's fine. She doesn't really understand why it's bad because she was raised in the woods for a chunk of her life. How about Fujitsu? Is he cool?"

"Er, yeah. He's actually really smart. The only thing that got us through the first exams were the strategies that he made for us."

They continued to make idle chit chat until the iron ingot in the furnace got heated enough to the point where it would be easily moldable. After that, Tenten said goodbye to Naruto punctuated with a hug and left to go get the rest of her stuff.

She didn't really know how she was feeling at the moment. She kinda liked Naruto and was more than slightly interested in pursuing a relationship with him. After all, he was probably the only normal male in her life at the moment, they had similar senses of humor, and she just enjoyed being around and talking to him. Actually, she had been in the process of mustering up her courage to ask him out after the second exam, but decided it wouldn't make much sense to try and start a relationship only to immediately put it on a month long hiatus.

There was always a chance that the person you liked might get snatched away before you could figure out how to make a move on them, but this Fu chick sounds like she might hasten the process.

Well, Naruto said he wasn't too keen on her actions, so they'll probably stay just partners. Once she got back after a month, she'd confront him and ask him out. Tenten was convicted to do this. Assuming that he and Fu didn't get together after all.

Actually, no. That left too many things to chance. She was a ninja now. That meant that she'd be surrounded by other ninja with their very own 'ninja quirks'. She was close to someone who at least seemed like he'd be a good fit for her, devoid of any of those 'ninja quirks', so she had to make sure that he knew about her affections before she left.

Tenten raced down the stairs with her suitcase in hand. The sound of a hammer clanging against metal could be heard from the forge. She opened the door suddenly, which surprised Naruto into setting down the superheated metal onto the anvil.

"Tenten? You scared me. What's up?"

She walked up to Naruto with her suitcase being held by both hands behind her back. "I just want to say goodbye for good." She said with a grin. Before she could think twice about it, she leaned forward and landed a peck on his cheek.

As she leaned back, he looked at her, slightly numb with shock and a dumb look on his face, not knowing what to say from her actions.

Oh god… why did she do that? If he didn't like her like that, then she just forfeited a friendship. Not only that, but Naruto worked in the forge very often. They'd see each other on a regular basis and she'd just done something to make those interactions awkward beyond belief.

A bright crimson flooded her cheeks. Tenten turned heel and headed out the door to the road where she quickly jumped up on the rooftops and made a beeline for the gates.

Naruto lightly touched the point on his cheek where Tenten had kissed him.

What the fuck does that mean? Well it obviously means something. It means that she likes him, most prominently. But Naruto was very confused by this fact. Girls thought he was annoying and loud and obnoxious. So why did Tenten do that?

Of course, as of late, he'd been getting along rather well with girls and women. Anko just went through a big deal of a thing to get him to be her apprentice. Fu thought he was tolerable enough that she entered his bed without permission. _Did_ girls like him? The concept was foreign to him.

Or maybe she lost a bet and was put up to it by a friend. Stuff like that happened in the academy from time to time, so it wasn't such a stretch that Tenten would do it as well.

Naruto quenched the hot metal still lying on the anvil into the nearby water trough. He could always come back to the metal later, because right now he had some sleuthing to do.

That sleuthing just included him heading back home and checking out the guidebook. Luckily enough for him, it appeared that several days of seduction lessons actually did pay off. Just not in the way that he imagined it would.

00000000

Hiashi looked down at the kneeling boy in front of him. Right now he and the boy were alone in the clan head's office.

"Neji." He said severely and seriously. "You and Hinata will be going to the Hidden Stone for training until the third exam starts. Do you know what this means?"

"Yes, Hiashi-sama." Neji said through clenched teeth. "I will protect Hinata-sama with my life. There will be no risk to the byakugan being compromised. I promise you this."

Hiashi stared at the boy for moments longer. Truthfully, he wasn't too worried about Stone stealing Hinata's byakugan or them taking her for slavery. If he remembered anything from the third shinobi war, it was that Onoki was a smart and tactful leader. He would never do anything to publically ostracize his nation in front of the other four nations. It just wasn't smart. No matter how sought after the byakugan was.

The Hyuuga family was having familial problems. Hinata was too timid and weak to become a strong shinobi or even the heir to the Hyuuga. Neji was a spiteful lad, with good reason for it. His own father forfeited his life for his uncle due to the circumstances of birth. He had every right to be spiteful. Hanabi was a talented little girl, even surpassing the strength of her sister. This raised the question as to who the true heir of the Hyuuga should be.

Hiashi didn't really know what to do about this though. Hinata's strength wasn't so much a matter of conviction as a matter of disposition. She was too soft to be strong and no matter what he did, Hinata's disposition remained unchanged. Neji was angry at the unfairness of the Hyuuga clan and Hiashi telling him about the duty and honor of the branch family's service to the main family would only exacerbate the situation. Hanabi was the strongest of his daughters, but he didn't necessarily know if she would be cut out for leading a clan.

Hiashi was a stern father, he demanded respect and he got it. Despite his strength as a shinobi, he had absolutely no idea how to help his family for the good. Branch or otherwise. It just wasn't in his area of expertise.

"…As long as you know this, Neji. You are dismissed. Get packed for the Village of Stones."

Neji bowed his head respectfully and exited the room.

Hiashi sat down in his chair behind the desk and placed his head the in palms of his hands out of exasperation.

What was he going to do about his family?

00000000

Samui was at the gate, tapping her foot impatiently. Where was that green kid?

Some guy with a bandaged up thing on his back was walking out of the village with an Inuzuka. Kiba and Kankuro if she remembered correctly. _They_ were on time and heading out for the village that they were heading to.

Eventually, an average looking Taki nin took off with a leaf kunoichi. She hadn't seen much of them during the exams either. The Leaf girl had a monstrous blush on her face and wouldn't tell her partner why it was that way. They left to their village as well while she waited for that bowl-haired genin.

An aloof looking jonin alighted next to a pink haired leaf nin and a sand nin. Sakura and Temari. They had actually 'met' during the second exam once. She was about to give the order to jump them when her teammate stopped her. It wasn't like she could blame him, after all he about to jump a fellow leaf nin, but it was really frustrating for her at the time. The three exited the gate together.

"SAMUI-SAN!" She averted her head to the side as she watched a plume of dust race towards her. The plume of dust grew a face as Lee ran as fast as he could toward her. "I'M SORRY-"

He tripped over his feet and began tumbling head over toe without losing much of his momentum. She sidestepped the green blur and it impacted the wall with a resounding THUNK.

Samui sighed in contempt. She no doubt respected his strength and drive. Some of the things he did in the forest just didn't seem possible for humans, shinobi or not. But he just refused to shut up and had an annoyingly specific chivalrous code. Their personalities really grated against each other. Or more like his grated against hers. She didn't think anything bothered Lee, least of all personalities.

"LEE!" From the plume of dust that was kicked up, a taller version of Lee burst forward. He ran up to Lee and picked him up from the ground. "Lee! Are you alright?"

Lee feebly took a hold of the larger man's hand. "Gai-sensei." His eyes were watery with tears.

"Lee."

"Gai-sensei."

"Lee."

"Are you alright?" Samui asked, ruining the moment between sensei and student. "And who is he?"

Gai helped Lee up and dusted his shoulders off. After doing so, he struck his Nice Guy Pose© "I am Maito Gai, the sensei of your partner. I will be accompanying you on your adventure to the Land of Water. It's a pleasure to meet you." The exuberant man said in common Gai fashion.

'Oh god, there's another one.' Samui thought to herself.

"Gai-sensei!" Lee shouted out. "If I cannot get to the Land of Water within the day, I will do 500 push-ups."

Gai emphatically placed a palm on the hopeful boy's shoulder. "Lee, I will accept this challenge along with you."

"Are you guys serious?" Samui asked coldly. "There's no way we can to the Land of Water within the day."

"With the Power of Youth©, anything is possible." Gai said with his most serious face.

Samui sweatdropped. "Let me rephrase that. There's no way that I could ever get to the Land of Water within the day."

Gai immediately knelt down and offered her his back. "If you are not up to the challenge, then I will take carrying you as a handicap for my student's sake."

"Gai-sensei!" Lee shouted excitedly.

"There's no way in hell I'm getting on your back."

"You would prefer bridal then?"

"No."

"Fireman?"

Samui gripped the bridge of her nose tightly. "I'm not going to let either of you carry me." She said sternly.

"The sun is going down! We are losing time. We can't afford to nitpick the details."

"We don't have to get there within the day!" Samui said with a slightly raised voice.

"But we do! Lee has challenged himself to break new barriers and to better his self through physical exertion. I couldn't be able to call myself his sensei if I discouraged such behavior."

Gai tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Hmmmm… then what do I do~? Oh! I know." Gai went through a couple handseals before slamming his hand on the ground. Sealing arrays spread outward from his palm and a large tortoise poofed into existence.

It looked around lethargically. "Here." Gai said.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Samui asked.

"This is a summon animal." Gai explained. "When we are safely within the Land of Water, I'll reverse summon it. You just have to sit on it until I do so."

Samui looked away from him to look the tortoise in the eye. "I don't think this is the greatest-" When she looked away from the tortoise, instead of finding her partner and his sensei, all she saw was two vaguely human shaped puffs of dust. There was a trail of dust leading all the way to the two shinobi racing towards the horizon.

What she wouldn't give to be on a team with anyone else. Samui hopped on the tortoise for now and waited.

… Whelp, now she was beached on a big tortoise with nothing to entertain herself with, while the two shinobi raced towards the Land of Water.

Just as she was thinking about getting off of it, the tortoise lethargically got up and began ambling around toward the direction of Konoha proper.

"This is so not cool."

00000000

Kurotsuchi glared at the last Uchiha. They were walking in the direction of the Village Hidden in the Stones in complete silence and one-sided hatred.

Nothing was said between the two, nothing happened between the two, nothing but Kurotsuchi glaring at the kid.

She didn't like him. That much was for sure. He acted like he had a stick up his ass, he had a superior tone of voice and countenance, and most importantly, he insulted her village.

It was an offhand remark, something about the quality of shinobi produced there. She doubted that he even knew that he did it. Kurotsuchi might have been able to get over it, but he was just such a prick that she couldn't think of doing anything other than hating him for it.

He was a prick to everyone, she knew that from their limited interaction in the forest. She also knew that there was something majorly wrong with him if he was willing to take a good grip on someone's head, stare at them in the eyes, and snap their neck after utterly terrifying them. It wasn't the death that threw her off of him, it was the fact that he was almost playing with his food that got her. Not to mention that weird shit that was on his skin, she didn't even know what to do with that.

So she continued to glare at him. Somewhere in the back of her head, she knew that it was petty to hate him as much as she did, but she didn't exactly care at the moment.

He had handsome features, a good physique, and a look that would have chicks swarming over him. Despite those things, she knew that she could never like him let alone be attracted to him because he was just so completely dull and stoic.

If only she could have gotten another teammate instead of him. Like that blonde kid. Sure, he might have pushed her into a trap, but that was a heck of a lot better than slitting her throat. He could also fight pretty well and knew medic ninjutsu. An all-around shinobi that any genin would cream their pants to get as their partner. But nope, she was stuck with stoic psychopants on a journey of several days and many glares.

No, this month was not going to be fun for her at all.

00000000

The veterinary was empty. The walls were clinically white, there were no other people sitting in the multitude of chairs, and the counter was alarmingly empty.

Naruto headed outside to double check the sign. Yup, it definitely read 'open'.

Inside, Naruto tried calling out. "Is anybody here?" But that only set off a round of assorted barks, yips, snarls, pitches, and hoots. Kashikoi struggled in Naruto's arms from the sudden wild animal noises. She was definitely one fearful little kit.

While getting the fox under control, Naruto checked out if there was anything wrong in the back. People don't just leave a store unlocked with the open sign up and not be inside it.

Sure enough, in the back he found a teenage girl lying down on a metal table fully asleep. She was about 17 to 20 if Naruto was guessing correctly and had the Inuzuka traits one would associate with them. There also didn't seem to be anything wrong with her. Fully clothed, recumbent position, a satisfied look on her face. Nothing to denote anything sinister.

Naruto poked her shoulder. "Hey, are you okay?"

The girl shifted a little in her sleep.

He jabbed harder. "Do you need help?"

The girl growled lowly, making Naruto less willing to continue to interrupt her sleep. Damn it, now how was he going to learn how to take care of a fox? It wasn't like there was a manual for that.

Just as he was thinking of ways to get into a library while smuggling in a fox, Kashikoi managed to wiggled from his grasp and land on the table that the Inuzuka girl was sleeping on. Naruto immediately grabbed the little fox, but by then it had yipped a few times directly in her face.

The girl suddenly sat upright and began doing things that would normally require a large portion of a brain to be dedicated to that task, grabbing small objects, mumbling to herself, walking, those kinds of things. Her eyes were halfway closed and she didn't seem aware of Naruto's presence, which worried him greatly since he was in full view of her.

"Are you okay?" Naruto repeated.

No response.

He grabbed her shoulder. "Do I need to get someone?" He asked fearfully.

She jolted a little bit, as if she was just waking. "Huh? What? The shots!" She started scrambling over the room in search of what he assumed would be shots. The girl continued to do this, with Naruto off to the side not wanting to interrupt her, until she had a sudden realization.

She stopped what she was doing and stared at the clock. 2:30. Afternoonish. She body relaxed and she sighed in relief, presumably from the look of the clock. "It's not night then. Wooh." She sat down in a chair next to her and slumped into it. Her eyes drooped and her body went ragdoll in it.

"Oi." Naruto exclaimed. The girl definitely looked like she needed some sleep, but now that she was awake he didn't want to lose her to the land of dreams so fast.

For the second time in five minutes, she jolted up from slumber. "Wha-? Who are you?"

"I'm Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto." He said unsurely. Kiba mentioned that his sister worked in the vet's place. Was this her? She seemed like the right age for it, but lacked the slit eyes that Kiba and his mom had.

She groaned a little bit and stretched herself out. "Why are you here?" She finally asked.

Naruto showed Kashikoi off a little bit. "I need help with my fox-"

"No," She interrupted. "Why are you in the back room? Only employees are allowed back here."

"There was no one else here and I kinda really need help with my fox-"

"Damn it." She whispered, interrupting him again. "There wasn't anybody here? A teenager with a snaggle tooth at the counter?"

Naruto shook his head.

She began rubbing the tired out of her eyes. "Kenko was supposed to be at the counter. He left again." She said mostly to herself. "Anyway, what's wrong with your fox? Injury or ailment?"

"Neither of those. Kiba said that you'd be here to tell me how to take care of my fox."

She looked at him a bit more severely. "Uzumaki Naruto… Ohhhh. You're the new member aren't you? Kiba was really happy that you're part of the clan. Probably had something to do with you saving his dog's life."

"Err, thanks. Anyway, the fox." Naruto said as he repositioned the fox in his arms to that she was more comfortable.

"Mmhmm, one second." She got up from the semi-comfortable chair with a little bit of difficulty.

"Are you okay?" Naruto asked. "You look like you need some sleep."

She laughed a little bit at that. "We got some exotic animals that need very specific shots at very specific points in time. We're offloading them in a week, but until that happens it's only Kenko and I working around the clock making sure that they get the right shots. Well, I'm here at least. I've no idea where Kenko is."

Naruto nodded. "Kiba said you were his sister…"

She held her hand out to be shaken. "Hello, I'm Inuzuka Hana." She paused to yawn widely. "It's nice to meet you."

Naruto shook the hand, but had to let go very quickly lest he accidently drop Kashikoi.

"You took a fox as your partner then? There aren't many members who use those."

"Are they less useful?"

"Well, they don't grow as big as the dogs do. They're usually given to the members who show an interest in supplementary shinobi work as opposed to front line missions. I guess that makes sense 'cause you're a medic nin."

"I'm not a medic nin." Naruto said. "I chose Kashikoi because I liked how she looked." The small fox yipped in agreement.

"You're not a medic nin? I saw the scar that Akamaru has, you saved his life where any other medic nin probably would have failed."

"I didn't do it using just medic ninjutsu. I mostly used my field medicine kit."

"Still, you have a talent for making sure people (and dogs) stay alive. If you aren't going for a medic nin license, you probably should at least consider it. Comes with some nice perks."

"Are you a medic nin?"

She nodded tiredly. "I also got a secondary veterinary license. It's really good. You get good pay, work is easy to find, the chance of death is just about the lowest out of all the disciplines."

"I'll consider it after I pass the chunin exams. But to do that, I need to learn how to work with Kashikoi here." Naruto patted the fox on the head affectionately.

She nodded. "There are some training books that we keep here for dog and fox training. I'll also get you some starter stuff. Where do you live?"

"West side of Konoha."

She bit the side of her cheek. "There aren't a lot of parks there. Foxes were domesticated in our clan later than our dogs were. They're still a little bit wilder than the dogs, so they have to have a lot of running room."

"So what do I do?"

"You could always stay here at your fiancée's house."

Naruto looked at her strangely. "I'm not… engaged."

"Your girlfriend then? Honorary clan status is usually only given to those in serious relationships."

Oh that's right, Kiba said something about honorary clan status being given to widen the gene pool. "Uhhh, my situation is a little different."

She stroked her chin in thought. "I guess that makes sense. It's kinda weird for a 12 year old to be in a serious relationship like that."

"13."

"How's your situation different anyway?"

"I'm not sure if I should say. Your mom should know, ask her."

"Fine, fine. If you don't want to tell me, then that's your business. If you don't have a place to stay in the compounds, then… I don't know. I'll have to ask my mom if there any available apartments." She walked out of the backroom and into the lounge area.

"Thanks." Hana began ruffling through the drawers beneath the register. Once she grabbed the correct books, she went back into the backroom and got a few bags of assorted goodies.

Taking Care of Foxes for Dummies.

House Training Your Cat.

House Training Your Dog.

How to Train Your Fox.

There was also a bag that contained a few animal bowls, some fox food, and some kitty litter. "Training foxes is a little different than training dogs. It's okay to either train them to piss in litter or in the outdoors. It's your decision."

Naruto set Kashikoi down on the counter before grabbing the things. He was overcapacity with the amount of stuff he was carrying, but with some smart positioning, he got Kashikoi to balance on the things in his arms. "Thanks for the help." He muttered out.

"One last thing." She said as seriously as she could with her very tired demeanor. "Kashikoi isn't your fox anymore. She's your partner, not a plaything. Treat her with respect."

"Okay." He said, flashing her his cheeky grin before exiting the veterinary office. He'd have to come by later. She seemed really overwhelmed with her work and could probably use a shadow clone to help her out with it.

After all, it was just one more shadow clone.

00000000

_Anko Mitarashi:_

_What (Anko) thinks about you: interesting, sincere, hard-working,_

_Anko has (little) romantic feelings for you. She is (not) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: men who like for who I am instead of what I am, men who can fight for themselves, men who are nice, men who are capable of forming their own opinions, men who are interesting._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: mostly unknown_

_Fu:_

_What (Fu) thinks about you: Understanding, fun, charming_

_Fu has (a medium amount of) romantic feelings for you. She is (fairly) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: People who understand me and what I've got through._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: mostly unknown_

_Tenten Higurashii:_

_What (Tenten) thinks about you: normal, funny, sincere_

_Tenten has (a medium amount of) romantic feelings for you. She is (particularly) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: men who can take care of themselves, men who are normal, men who are nice to me, men who are good for talking to._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: mostly unknown_

_Ino Yamanaka:_

_What (Ino) thinks about you: Kind of annoying, loud, brash, hardworking_

_Ino has (little) romantic feelings for you. She is (not) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: men who are secure about who they are, men who are cool, men who are nice to me, men who will listen to what I say_

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown_

_Anko Mitarashi:_

_Sakura Haruno:_

_What (Sakura) thinks about you: annoying, kind of weird._

_Sakura has (no) romantic feelings for you. She is (not) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: men who listen to me, men who are nice, men who enjoy the same things that I do, men who are strong and can take care of me, men who respect me._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown._

_Hinata Hyuuga:_

_What (Hinata) thinks about you: nice, supportive, determined, strong, hardworking, sincere._

_Hinata has (a large amount of) romantic feelings for you. She is (very) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: men who listen to what I have to say, men who are supportive, men who are strong, men who have fun, men who will always be by my side, men who are determined and hardworking._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown._

Naruto looked at the stats in confusion. Tenten, Hinata, and Fu had larger than normal romantic interest in him and were interested in starting a relationship.

Fuck.

He liked Sakura, not them. Shit, he worked with Tenten in the forge often. She might be going away for the month, but when she came back it was going to be awkward for them. He didn't even know what to do about Fu. They were going to be training side by side for the next month. She was bunked in the same room as him for Christ sake. The same bed even.

How was he going to handle this? He didn't like them like that! Or at least he didn't think he did. And even if he did, there was two of them. One of them was bound to be hurt.

He needed to ask someone more knowledgeable on the subject than him. Anko wouldn't be his first choice, but at the moment he was devoid of anyone else that he could turn to on the subject.

The original and Fu were still training. Bursting now would probably upset something that was happening. The smartest thing to do would be to go back to the forge and dispel naturally. Let the original do all the hard thinking.

"Oi, Is something wrong?" One of the Cook! Naruto's asked him.

"Ehmmm. You'll find out when I dispel." The Forge! Naruto said in return.

"Did something happen?"

"You'll find out."

The Cook! Naruto looked like he wanted to ask in more detail, but was derailed when the door opened and Inuzuka! Naruto walked into the apartment. The sound of yipping assaulted their ears. "Guess who has handsome looks, a great personality, and a new foxy partner." He called out from the doorway.

"I don't care." Cook! Naruto said. He was slightly steamed as of late because he was having trouble perfecting the shrimp ramen recipe that he was put in charge of.

Inuzuka! Naruto brought over the fox to show the other clones after he set down the items that were taking up his arm space. "Meet Kashikoi, our new ninken partner." He said gleefully.

"A ninken?"

"It's an Inuzuka thing." He replied simply. Inuzuka! Naruto set the fox on the ground and let it explore the house a bit. "We also might be moving into the Inuzuka compounds in a little bit."

A collective groan was heard from the kitchen. "Why do we have to leave? Is that another Inuzuka thing?" Forge! Naruto asked.

"Nah, Kashikoi just needs to be able to run around some."

"Well this place is getting kind of cramped." Cook! Naruto said.

"Oh, and you guys will never guess what I saw on the way here." Inuzuka! Naruto said.

"What?"

"You know Samui? That Cloud chick"

"Of course we know her, we're you."

"Well anyway, she was just crouched on top of this giant turtle thing."

"…What?"

"Yeah, it was really weird. She looked pissed, so I didn't say anything, but it still looked really silly." Inuzuka! Naruto said to the clones before cracking up in laughter.

"Glad you're having such a great time." Cook! Naruto said sarcastically.

Kashikoi began running wildly around the apartment for no apparent reason. The sounds that she generated were loud enough to derail the conversation that the Narutos were having. "What's wrong with her?" Cook! Naruto asked.

"I don't know." Inuzuka! Naruto said. "Maybe she needs something?"

"Food?"

"Water?"

"Piss?"

Each of the three Narutos started to tear apart the bagging that Hana had given Inuzuka! Naruto for the things that they needed to set up for the fox. One filled up the food bowl, another filled up the water bowl, and the last one began setting up the kitty litter.

When all was said and done with, Kashikoi had stopped running around the apartment and stared at the three of them expectantly. It yipped once. A pop-up window came up in front of all of them. It expanded widely for all to see.

_(Kashikoi) wants to be in your party._

_You will have (one) spot left if you say yes_

_[Yes] [No]_

Silence filled the apartment. The only sounds were the ones coming from the kitchen where the other oblivious Cook! Narutos were working.

"What do we do?" Forge! Naruto asked.

Inuzuka! Naruto slowly brought his hand forward and hovered over the _[Yes]_ button. He looked back at the others to see if they would stop him, but nothing came. He pushed his hand forward and tapped the _[Yes]_ button.

The pop-up retracted. Kashikoi yipped again and began eating some food from the bowl.

The Narutos looked at each other. "What was that?" Cook! Naruto asked.

Forge! Naruto began flipping through the guidebook that still propagated his hand.

_Kashikoi:_

_What (Kashikoi) thinks about you: smells nice_

_Kashikoi has (no) romantic feelings for you. She is (not) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: NA_

_Base stats: _

_Chakra: 10_

_Chakra control: 2_

_Wisdom: 5_

_Intelligence: 3_

_Charisma: 19_

_Flexibility: 30_

_Speed: 35_

_Strength: 7_

_Edurance: 20_

_Affinities: _

_Tracking 15/50_

_(Kashikoi) is a part of your party. She is cognizant of the fact that the game is going on and you may now recruit her for missions that you wish to embark upon._

By the time Forge! Naruto was done reading her new stats, the others were crowded around him.

"A party system?" Cook! Naruto asked.

"This is so cool." Inuzuka! Naruto said.

"We still have one slot left." Forge! Naruto added.

"Who should we add?"

"Anko?"

"Fu?"

"Sakura-chan?"

"Teme?"

"Kakashi-sensei?"

"No. We need someone smart."

"Someone like who?"

"Shikamaru?"

"Yes, Shikamaru. He's smart. He could probably figure this game out."

"Should we all go?" Cook! Naruto asked.

"No, I'll go." Forge! Naruto said. "I'm already out of my way on what I'm supposed to do."

Inuzuka! Naruto picked up one of the books on the table on fox training. "Well good luck then. I've got to figure out how to train a fox."

Cook! Naruto walked back to the kitchen with a slightly annoyed look on its face. This little diversion had been fun, but he really had to figure out how to get the shrimp ramen up to 50.

"I really hope this works." Forge! Naruto said as he walked out the door.

00000000

Karui glowered at the two shinobi in front of her. One was taller than the other and had more jagged features, while the second one was shorter and had more rounded features. These were Nara Shikamaru and Nara Shikaku and they were staring at a board of chess that they were kneeling in front of.

Neither of them had made one single move yet, but they were still staring at the board intensely. Probably the first and only time she could see her teammate with an intense look on his face would be when he was staring at a chess board in front of his father.

Shikamaru's hand hovered over his left white knight for several seconds before withdrawing it. Then he did the same for nearly all of the pawns on the board, wasting minutes of Karui's time. Minutes may not sound like much to get upset over, but she still didn't know why they were wasting it.

Karui growled lowly. She walked brusquely up to Shikamaru, sat down next to him, and moved the right white knight to a space in front of the pawns. "There." She hissed. "Your move, old man." She said to Shikaku.

Shikaku move one of his pawns two spaces in front of him with a smirk on his face. Shikamaru groaned into his palm. "Checkmate." Shikaku drawled out.

"What the fuck are you on, old man? We're nowhere near checkmate." Karui said belligerently.

"You lost the game for me." Shikamaru said exasperatedly. "In all the moves that would precede this, I would eventually lose after move 45. I would take his two knights, one of his bishops, two of his rooks, and five of his pawns. He would place me in check by putting my king in a corner and placing his queen, the bishop and one of his pawns there to stop its advance."

Karui looked at the boy incredulously. "What is wrong with this clan? Do you see the future or something?"

"We're just smart, unlike you." Shikamaru said.

"Now, now." Shikaku said. "There's no need to fight. If you two are going to advance in the tournament, then you're going to have to work together."

Karui huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't see how I'm going to be able to work with a treehugging leaf nin who doesn't know how to act."

"And I don't see how I'm going to work with an irascible airhead who only knows how to charge ahead."

"What the fuck does irascible mean?"

Shikamaru looked disinterestedly at her. "It means you're quick to anger."

She roughly grabbed the collar of his mesh shirt and brought him closer to her snarling face. "Say that again, treefucker. See what happens."

The shadows around the room coalesced into different strands that gripped the two and roughly pulled them apart. Shikaku was crouched down with his hands in the rat seal. "You two are either going to have to learn to work together, or you're going to fail in the first round."

Karui began struggling against the shadows fruitlessly. "What the actual fuck is wrong with your clan? You never do anything because you're too busy thinking, you're ridiculously smart and ridiculously lazy, and now you can make shadow tentacles. _Shadow tentacles_."

"They aren't tentacles." Shikaku said. "Tentacles assume a 3D space. These only assume a 2D one."

Just as Karui moaned out in annoyance and confusion, the door opened with two people in the doorway. One was the blonde kid who made it through the exams and the other was Shikamaru's mom, Yoshino Nara.

Naruto rubbed the back of his neck embarrassedly. "Am I interrupting something?"

Shikaku's shadow stitches pulled away and let them both have their movement back. "Not at all."

"Hey Naruto." Shikamaru greeted.

"Hey Shikamaru." Naruto looked around the room of people who had their eyes on him. It was probably for the best that he not tell everyone in the room who didn't need to know. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

Shikamaru looked to his dad, who sighed from vexation. "Go on, we could all use a break from training."

"This was training?" Karui asked incredulously.

Naruto and Shikamaru exited the room together and faced each other in the hall. "What's this about Naruto?"

"I need you to do me a favor."

Shikamaru gave him a strange look. Naruto almost never asked for favors, it just wasn't in his best interest to be indebted to other people. "Okay, what do you need?"

"Do you want to join my party?"

Shikamaru didn't particularly know what to say at this remark.

"Did anything happen?"

"Was something supposed to happen?"

Naruto stroked his non-existent beard in thought for several seconds. "…What did I do wrong? Oh wait, Kashikoi asked me. That's what set it off, not the other way around. Ask me to join my party." He ordered.

"Naruto, what's this about? Is something wrong man?"

"Just do it!"

Shikamaru sighed. "Can I… join your party?" When he said those words, something strange happened. A small square, one might call it a window, popped up in front of Naruto. Naruto exclaimed joyously and touched a part of the window. "What just happened?" Shikamaru asked, slightly freaked out.

"You're part of my party now!"

"What does that mean!?"

"…Don't you feel any different?"

"No, I-" Shikamaru's eyes widened. He could feel something wrong with his ninja pouch. He reached inside and felt something in there that wasn't supposed to be there. Something vaguely book-like.

The book was about the size of a small hand-guide. It was beige in color and had no title or anything else to denote what it would be used for. "What did you do?" Shikamaru asked. "What did you get me involved in?"

Naruto brought out his very own, very similar looking book. "Welcome to Naruto: the Game!"

Shikamaru cracked open the book and read the opening statement. "Troublesome."

00000000

Naruto (the original) had a bright blush on his cheeks. The reason for this would be the fact that he was currently only wearing a towel and was having his back scrubbed down by a gleeful Anko Mitarashi. Fu was washing herself on the stool next him, not doing anything to hide her modesty, thusly he averted his eyes downwards.

On one hand, Naruto kind of respected Fu for how open and carefree she was, on the other, she should probably wear a towel when washing herself in a mixed bath.

After the training that Anko put them through, the Mitarashi vouched for going to a mixed bath. Naruto and Fu were too tired at the time to resist that idea and the idea of a hot soak was actually really appealing to them.

Other than he, Anko, and Fu, there was one other person there. A tall blonde kunoichi that was soaking in the bath when the three made it to the bath. Naruto thought she looked familiar, but didn't know where to place the face.

"You two really don't know when to stop fighting do you?" Anko asked. "You were at it for hours."

Naruto did a kind of shrug. "I've got good stamina." He remarked simply.

"Well, yeah. Of course you do. But still, I never thought it extended that far." The fight between him and Fu had been rather one-sided. It was clear that Fu would come out the victor based solely on the fact that Naruto was never given the chance to go on the offensive. That being said, for much longer than Anko expected, he was able to fend her off with his bo staff and senbon.

After their little 'extended spar', Anko escorted them into the forest of death in order to put her own kind of training on them. Not much will be said about that training session other than the fact that it managed to tire them out to the point where they had trouble moving afterwards.

Anko truly was a psychopathic sadist.

"It was fun." Fu said with a smile on her face. "Well, not the stuff after the spar, but the spar itself was fun."

"Yeah, it was."

Fu looked at Naruto worriedly. "Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong."

"Then why do you look so sad?"

"I'm not sad."

"Then why are you staring at the floor all sad like."

Naruto looked up at her and promptly looked back at the ground with an intensified blush. "Maybe it's because you aren't wearing a towel." Naruto offered.

"But towels are for getting dry. I still want to soak in the water." Fu stated simply.

"That's not… the… point. Anko, you get why she's supposed to take a towel right?"

Anko lightly slapped Naruto on the back. "Oh come on you prude. It's only the human form, there's no need to be ashamed of anything."

"But… I'm not supposed to look at you when you're naked. It's not right." The orphanage that he stayed at had at the very least told him about how one wasn't supposed to look at another when they were naked. It just wasn't polite, after all.

Anko shrugged her shoulders, not that Naruto knew she did so. "Whatever, it's my turn anyway."

"What?"

Anko sat down at the stool next to Naruto and pointed to her back. "I wash your back, you wash mine."

She covered her front torso and crotch area with a towel, covering the sensitive bits. She might be a psychopathic sadist, but at least she respected Naruto's personal space.

He tentatively grabbed a washing towel and began scrubbing down her back. "I still don't get why you're so sensitive about all this stuff. You're a guy, isn't this like a dream to you? Plus, it's still just the human form."

"So does that make it okay to run out naked in the streets?" Naruto retorted.

"No, but I'm comfortable around you. So I don't mind it. Are you uncomfortable around me?"

"I just don't… want you to see me naked. It's weird."

"You'll get over that eventually." Anko said with a sense of finality.

"Okay!" Fu said excitedly. "Bath time!" After exerting her excitement over the prospect of soaking in the bath, she promptly jumped in the small pool. It was evening out and the sky was a pretty pink.

Fu groaned into the bath and sunk even deeper. The water truly did feel good on her sore muscles and training aches. "Is the water good?" Anko asked.

"So great!" Fu began floating on her back in the water. Due to the fact that there was only the blonde kunoichi in the water other than her, she had the space to play.

Anko abruptly got up from the stool and did a running jump into the pool, splashing water everywhere. The unnamed kunoichi looked annoyed, but didn't comment and risk an unneeded argument. Naruto got up as well and lowered himself into the bath. Normally he would be full of unbridled energy and jump into the pool with her, but was still not as open with his body as Anko or Fu were, which led to him carefully putting the towel to the side of the pool and sinking into it as fast as he could. The water was murky with minerals and other such things, meaning no one could see any sensitive bits under the water.

Naruto let out a sigh of relief. His muscles ached from the day of training and the water did feel really good. Naruto was what some would call hyperactive, meaning he normally didn't have the ability to just quietly soak in water and relax. He was a busy man, things to do, people to see, pranks to pull, things like that. But with the knowledge that the clones were taking care of all the things he needed taking care of at the moment, coupled with his increased exhaustion, he allowed himself to close his eyes and just let the water soothe his body.

"You're that kid."

Naruto looked up from his position of relaxation. It was the unnamed kunoichi who addressed him. "Do I… know you?" He asked.

"I'm Yugito Nii… We met in the sushi restaurant. You ratted me out to the Raikage."

Now that Naruto got a good look at her, he realized that this was true. She was the cloud jonin that he got Jinchuuriki points from telling Ai where she was. She looked really different with her hair down. Naruto rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Hehe, sorry about that."

She waved him off. "Don't worry about it. So you actually took the exams? I definitely thought you were going to die."

Naruto sweatdropped. "Thanks so much for that vote of confidence."

She shrugged dismissively. "Whatever. Is that your partner?" She asked, pointing to Fu, who was now in a splash fight with Anko.

Naruto nodded.

"Isn't she a little… loud, for bathing?"

"I guess. Sorry about that, she's an orphan who grew up in the woods, so she doesn't know much about social stuff."

Yugito quirked an eyebrow. "And I assume that the woman who followed you in is your sensei? Was she raised in the woods too?"

"Nah, she's just like that sometimes."

"I see."

Both she and Naruto were willing to let the conversation drop there, seeing as they didn't really know each other and wanted to go back to their own devices, but Naruto heard something strange that garnered his attention. It sounded like… scratching or something. Yugito apparently heard it as well because she got a far off look in her face and was looking around suspiciously.

"You hear that?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah, I do."

Anko and Fu swam over to where Naruto was in order to rope him in their innocent bathing games, but were immediately put on guard as they noticed the concentrated look on his face. "What's wrong?" Anko asked seriously.

"Can't you hear that?" Naruto asked.

"Hear what?" Fu asked.

"It's like… scratching. Yugito can hear it." Naruto said, pointing at the Cloud jonin.

"I have better senses than normal shinobi, so it makes sense that they wouldn't be able to hear it while I could."

"And who is she?" Anko asked Naruto.

"Oh, I'm sorry. This is Yugito Nii, jonin from Cloud. We met by accident at a sushi restaurant once." Naruto said, quickly introducing them.

"What's this scratchy sound?" Fu asked slightly worriedly.

"I don't know, it kinda sounds like… a pencil scribbling on paper."

Yugito got a serious and very scary look on her face. "You have got to be kidding me."

"What?" Naruto asked.

Yugito grabbed a towel that was near her and wrapped it around herself as she got up from the pool. Instead of making towards the door that led into the building, she aimed her body towards the walls that separated the hotsprings from the outside. A spout of blue flame erupted from her tailbone and shot towards a tree that was much taller than the walls. Evidently, it wrapped around a person, as when she pulled the tail of fire away from the tree, it was holding onto a very large man.

The tail threw him onto the floor with a thud. He had white locks of hair that fell all the way to his lower back and was dressed rather garishly. Other than that, he had a forehead protector that had the kanji for 'oil' on it.

"You fucking pervert." Yugito whispered dangerously.

Anko quickly connected a few dots and also got on her most dangerous expression. She hopped out of the water and took Naruto's towel to cover herself. Snakes slithered from her hands and wrapped around the struggling man. "You mind telling us why you were spying on us from a tree?" Anko asked in a feigned sweet tone.

Now normally, Jiraiya would be trying his best to get out of the situation by any means possible in order to get out of a beating. The fact that he was currently being held down by a Jinchuuriki from a nation from somewhere other than Konoha changed his expected demeanor slightly. "You mind telling me why I'm being held down by a Jinchuuriki?" he asked seriously.

"I'm with the Raikage." The tail tightened its hold on the man greatly. "I've got political immunity, now answer the question."

Things weren't looking so swell for Jiraiya at the moment. He made it a point to not peek on kunoichi, it's just dangerous business practice. But with all the foreign peoples coming and going as of late, he sometimes had trouble ascertaining whether someone had ninja training.

Jiraiya switched his tactic. "I was merely taking in the form of such beautiful creatures." Hopefully they would be willing to let him go based on the compliment that he gave them. The tactic normally never worked, but he was going 1 for 200, so it had to work sometimes.

Anko blushed, not from embarrassment, no she blushed from the sheer anger that she didn't know how to put properly into words. The snake's fangs unsheathed themselves from the snake's mouth and hovered dangerously close to the man's neck. "You fucking pedophile!" Anko pointed at Fu, who had sunken in the water up to her nose, dolefully looking up from the murky liquid. "She's fourteen!"

Jiraiya was quick to reiterate. "I wasn't looking at her! I'm into mature beauties."

Anko smiled sweetly. "Is that so? Because I'm into murdering perverted old geezers through the use of excessive poison." The fangs dug directly into his neck and injected him with a neurotoxin. Yugito's tail clamped onto him and threw him over the wall and onto the streets, where people shrieked in dismay.

Naruto looked dumbly at Anko. "Did you really kill him? Isn't that a bit too far?"

"I didn't kill him." Anko said disappointedly. "But that neurotoxin is really, really painful. I doubt he's going to be peeking on kunoichi any time soon."

"Wait, wait, wait." Fu said, standing up in the pool. "You're a Jinchuuriki?" She asked Yugito.

The Cloud jonin's fire tail shrunk back into her tailbone. "Yes." She said warily. Normally when people learned about her status as a Jinchuuriki, they were more withdrawn and tentative about the subject. This green-headed girl seemed absolutely ecstatic about it.

"We're Jinchuuriki too." She said, pointing to herself and Naruto.

Well this was certainly an unexpected situation. A meeting between beings, of which only nine exist, was abnormal enough not taking into account the fact that they were all naked doing so. "Really?"

"Yeah, I've got the Nanabi and he's got the Kyuubi."

Naruto waved from inside the pool.

"Can you train us?" Fu went on. "We don't know how to use our powers."

Yugito didn't really know how to answer. On one hand, she wasn't sure how the Raikage would react if she did train two very powerful weapons from different nations, but on the other, this new examinations concept between the villages was to support the unity between villages. Even if it didn't work out, Lighting was definitely going to try its hardest to work on the side of Fire. Training two potential allies didn't seem so bad. Then again, she had asked the Raikage previously for some off time in Konoha to experience all the things that Cloud didn't have that Leaf did. She had two weeks to spend on herself and wasn't too sure if she wanted to train two kids for the majority of it.

Fu grabbed a nearby towel and covered herself as she rose from the pool. She approached Yugito with puppy dog eyes and a pleading pout on her lips. "Please~"

A tic mark formed on Yugito's forehead. She never could resist that look in little kid's eyes. "Okay, okay. I'll train you."

While Yugito had been deliberating, Naruto had gotten out of the pool and grabbed a towel to cover his modesty. He and Fu slapped hands and gave great big shouts of joy.

They finally found someone to teach them how to control their respective bijuu powers.

00000000

Hayate looked at the night sky with a sad look on his face. Blood covered his face and torso from the huge lacerations on his chest and ribs. He didn't even know what was happening. He followed that silver haired Sound genin and listened in on his conversations. The genin met up with Orochimaru at some point and had a discussion with him. Hayate didn't even know what was said, he was too far away.

That didn't change Kabuto's willingness to nearly kill him and leave him for dead.

Hayate moved his neck incrementally to look at his chest. Blood was pouring from the wound in excess. He couldn't feel his arms, he couldn't feel his legs, he couldn't feel anything much.

Hayate laid his back and continued looking at the night sky. It was nearly a full moon out. He always loved the moon. It reminded him of Yugao.

Gekko Hayate closed his eyes for what would be a very long time. The one consolation that he had would be the fact that he closed those eyes thinking of Yugao, the love of his life.

**AN/ Read and Review.**

**Please note that nin dogs are not nin foxes.**

**On a side note, Temairine asked for my permission to take a few mechanics of my story and put it in a story of her own creation. It's a Game of Thrones fic and it's got a good start so far. I'm not sure if there's much crossover in the fanbase for Naruto and for GoT, but you do enjoy those two thingydos, then make sure to check it out.**

**The genin are exiting Konoha, Naruto has some new duds, Enter Kashikoi, Naruto's clone realizes that he has quite a few admirers, he and Fu have another sensei, Jiraiya's a pervert, and Hayate isn't having such a swell time.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	14. a middle to the month of training

Chapter 14

Two weeks later

**AN/ A point has been raised!**

**Somebody (not naming names) basically said that Anko shouldn't have called Jiraiya a pedo because Fu is fourteen and in puberty. But I am going to say that while the direct translation of pedo is 'lover of children', fourteen is still firmly within the bounds of the term 'child'.**

**Another thing!**

**While it is a mixed bath that he was peeping on, it is still enormously rude to peep on women in a mixed bath and vice versa for women to peep on men. There's a difference between a communal place where people can relax, clean themselves, and socialize and a person who pervs on women for lecherous purposes.**

Duck under slash. Parry away the first blow and dodge the second. Jump up in the air to avoid the snakes flowing from the ground.

Fu spat out a globule of blood from her mouth. Naruto had at one point during the battle smacked her right across the face with his bo staff. Must have cut the inside of her cheek or something.

Naruto was heavily leaning on his left leg. At some point, she had hit him _really_ hard on his thigh. Now he barely had any feeling there and it wasn't reacting like it should.

They were staring at each other from across a field in the middle of the forest of death. There was barely any sunlight because of the overhanging canopy, although they had a clear view of each other because of the transient light poking through every now and again.

It was a slight breather during their normal spar. That being said, he didn't want to risk taking his hands away from his bo staff and begin healing his thigh. No, that'd leave him open for a little bit of divine retribution.

A huge toad wielding double short swords waded into the clearing, bisecting anything and everything in its way.

Naruto and Fu jumped away from the toad, but found themselves in trouble. The vines that fell from the trees had somehow replaced themselves with snakes. They snapped at everything within their grasp, very nearly getting Naruto while he was in mid-air, but he used a shadow clone to toss him away from harm at the last second.

The two Jinchuuriki were engaged in what Anko called a 'fun spar', which basically consisted of them duking it out in the forest while she and Jiraiya ran interference.

00000000

_Two weeks ago_

_Naruto stared at the man in the grips of pain on the ground below him. It was his own damn fault for being such a pervert, but still, a neurotoxin was a bit much to be treating perversion with._

_The man stopped squirming all of the sudden and stood up straight just as if nothing had happened to him at all. Naruto took a step back in alarm. "Woah, are you okay?"_

_Jiraiya looked at the Jinchuuriki as if he was only just noticing his presence. "Yeah brat, I've got a resistance to most snake venoms in the world. Still hurt like a bitch though." He had a certain traitorous teammate of his to thank for that._

"_Well you wouldn't be hurting so much if you weren't such a pervert."_

_Jiraiya huffed and looked at Naruto with a scrutinizing eye. "I'm not a pervert." He said resolutely._

_Naruto quirked an eyebrow at the large man. "Well what are you then?"_

_Jiraiya traded his serious look for a goofy one. "I'm a SUPER pervert-" He stopped mid-declaration as he suddenly found a foot thoroughly burrowed into his crotch. The eccentric man fell to the floor in the grips of pain once more._

"_Do you have a resistance to getting kicked in the crotch?" Naruto asked smartly._

_Jiraiya got up faster than when he was out from the venom. "Actually yes." He had a certain irascible teammate of his to thank for that._

"_Who are you anyway?" Naruto had only stayed behind at the baths to make sure the old guy was alright, but he found himself intrigued by the old pervert. Not every civilian pervert had a resistance to physical trauma and snake venom._

_Smoke surrounded Jiraiya and Naruto found himself looking at a large toad with the sage standing on top of it. He began a long winded speech accompanied with a very choreographed dance. He looked silly, but he looked silly in a rehearsed way._

"_I am the great, the gallant, Jiraiya." He said, ending the dance in a stance betraying someone very important._

_Naruto deadpanned. "Who?"_

_Jiraiya's stance shattered and he looked at Naruto with a slightly hurt expression. "You honestly don't know who I am? Jiraiya of the Sannin, expert sealmaster, owner of the toad contract, lover of wo-"_

"_Expert sealmaster?" Naruto asked excitedly._

"_Er, yeah. I'm the most intelligent person in all of Fire country when it comes to seals."_

"_Do you know about the uhhh… the five… the five something seal?"_

"_Five tetragram?" _

"_No, no. Something else. It's like the uhhh… the five… Arrg! I forgot what it was called. The fingers of the guy who put it on me were all purple and on fire. You're a seal master right? That should be specific enough."_

"_That's the… five elements seal. I only know of three people who can use that seal and one of them is dead. Who put that on you?"_

"_Orochimaru of the Sannin. Oh wait, you're a Sannin too. Does that mean he was your teammate?"_

_Jiraiya was at a loss for words. He had already been debriefed by Sarutobi that Orochimaru had gunked up the exams, but didn't know that Naruto, his student's son, was involved with it. "Y-Yeah… he was my teammate."_

"_Oh." Naruto said lightly, scratching the back of his neck slightly. This situation just got slightly awkward. "Anyway, you can remove it right?"_

"_It's easy. Where did he hit you with it?"_

"_My gut." Naruto lifted his shirt to show the man._

"_Channel your chakra." Jiraiya ordered, getting down on one knee to get a better look at the blonde's stomach. As soon as he concentrated on channeling his chakra, seals written in a blank ink showed up in front of Jiraiya's face._

_Jiraiya went through a few handseals and his fingers went up in a blue fire. He lightly touched the fire to the points in Naruto's seal where the five element's seal array was present. Naruto squirmed a bit from the sensation of the seal getting removed. "That feels so weird."_

"_Yeah, you'll get that." Jiraiya remarked offhandedly._

_Naruto circulated his chakra around once more. It felt more… natural now. As if an unseen burden had been lifted without him having known he was under the burden in the first place. "Great! Now you can do Fu's seal. She's my teammate, she got hit by the seal too."_

_Jiraiya looked up at the night sky. The sun had vacated the upper reaches of the heavens, leaving only a moon gleaming in the sky full of little pinpricks of light. "Nah." Jiraiya said. "I don't think your friend is going to enjoy me coming over to her place at night in order to remove a seal. Plus it's dark out and I'm tired. I'll get rid of it in the morning. Where'll you be?" Now that he knew Orochimaru had messed up someone's chakra network with that bastardized seal of his, it kind of fell on him as a responsibility to help get rid of it._

"_We'll be at training ground 44." Naruto said excitedly. Fu was going to be so happy when she heard the seal was going to be removed._

_00000000_

As it turns out, Fu wasn't too hot on the idea of being anywhere near the man. In fact, Jiraiya very nearly got killed for real when Anko found him sneaking around the forest of death. Naruto had a dickens of a time trying to explain away why the pervert was there.

In the end, Jiraiya never really left and decided to train the two Jinchuuriki with Anko and Yugito. Naruto didn't exactly know his motivation, but decided not to question it.

He was also having a tough time trying to even enter the mindscape, the place where a Jinchuuriki could meet with their bijuu in the corporeal representation of their chakra system. Fu got there in no time flat and was able to speak easier with Chomei. She even convinced the large coagulation of chakra to let her train with some of it. So while Fu was off with Yugito in the afternoons to help her with the bijuu chakra, Naruto was stuck meditating in a forest.

It was boring, stupid, and not worth the effort as far as Naruto was concerned. He just didn't meditate well, he finally concluded.

Anyway, fighting with Fu, Anko, and Jiraiya got him so many more experience points than he thought he would get from it. In fact, he gained 3 levels within the first 3 days of sparring. The slope of how many experience points he got fell off though, not even in that he had to get more to gain more levels, but also in that he received less experience points from fighting them as well. He asked Anko about it using really vague terms and she brushed it off as the law of diminishing returns. Naruto didn't know what that was, but the way she explained it made sense.

Getting back to the fight, Naruto charged ahead at Fu with his bo staff close to his body. She was a fan of both supplementary fighting and close range fighting, although she leaned on the latter when it was one on one. So Naruto had learned very early on that when fighting a person who uses two handed swordsmanship, he had to keep his bo staff close to his person to make sure she couldn't take advantage of any openings that wide swings with a bo staff would create.

They clashed in a flurry of swift, precise blows that any civilian would have a tough time with keeping track of. Loud 'clacks' filled the clearing as the hardened water swords impact the tough wood of Naruto's bo staff. Fu's technique usually called for fast, battle determining strikes within seconds of the initial fight, and she was good at delivering for the most part. Only, bojutsu was a form of martial art that called for stalling the opponent by redirecting the strikes of the weapon that the opponent was using and attacking when she either got too tired to effectively fight, or got too frustrated to think straight. In this manner, they fought pretty evenly for the most part. Every so often, Fu would get a hit to one of Naruto's vital points, calling the match; or, just as often, Naruto would get her guard open and hit her with a flurry of quick, debilitating strikes across the torso and head.

Usually, after their round of sparring, Naruto and Fu would get taught by Anko in the basics of what she knew, different practically every day. Once it was identifying poisonous plants and how to extract their toxins, the next it was identifying medical herbs and using them for medical benefits, after that there was the lesson on moving stealthily either in the trees or on the ground, properly stretching the body to eventually get it more limber and capable of insane acrobatic feats (something Naruto wouldn't get any benefit from due to his acrobatic stat pertaining to his flexibility), she even taught them the basics of tracking using sight and evidence when there was no scent to pick up anymore.

After she was done grind- er, training them. Fu would go off with Yugito to learn how to control her power and Naruto would go off into a clearing to meditate. He always tries to as well, but is often too distracted to do it for more than five minutes. Afterwards, he heads off to find Jiraiya and tries to extract teaching from him. The damn pervert never responds unless Naruto's a naked chick, but he at least tries to teach Naruto some things. He even let Naruto sign the toad contract.

Once the training would conclude, Naruto and Fu would head off to the Inuzuka compounds to get some R&amp;R. It was quite a funny thing, his new living arrangements. Once Hana talked to her mom about his living scenario, she professed that there weren't any open apartments available for the two of them. So Tsume opened the doors of her own house for Naruto and Fu. Although her house was larger than most, it wasn't on the scale of a mansion or anything. A total of four, fully stocked, fully applianced out bedrooms with extending bathrooms made up the sleeping areas. Tsume's own, Hana's, Kiba's, and a guest bedroom. Tsume assumed that Naruto would take Kiba's bedroom and Fu would take the guest one, but was informed by the green-haired girl that she preferred to share a bed with the blonde-haired Jinchuuriki. So they both took the guest room together.

She was shocked once again when his sensei practically invited herself in to stay with them for the remainder of his living there. You see, Anko got Fu and Naruto on getting their poison and venom resistances up by taking light doses right before bed. Only they always forgot to do so. It wasn't a lack of will to do the experiment, merely a case of forgetfulness. So until further notice, she was living with her apprentice to make sure they did so. She had a right to do so as well, described by the contract that the Third signed off on.

It didn't really matter to Tsume much, because Anko slept in the same room as Naruto and Fu and she also didn't really leave much a trace of her existence around the house during her extended stay.

Naruto found it slightly strange for them to share the same futon with each other (the house was traditional eastern style with western influence), but you know what they say.

People norm.

It's a known fact that people act like the other people around them when the average behavioral disposition changes. It's a survival technique still in effect back from when people were monkeys. Either way, when Naruto was exposed to the fact that it actually wasn't that big a deal for people to share a bed for the sole purpose of sleep, shown when Fu and Anko didn't mind and readily accepted to sleeping in the same bed without any fuss, he subconsciously got more okay with the concept as the days and nights dragged on.

Although, it was agreed by both Fu and Naruto that she couldn't sleep with them if she was in the buff, which she tried to do often.

People norm, but old habits die hard.

As far as romance goes, Naruto was content to just wait it out and see what happens. After all, this was a situation completely foreign to him. And it's not like Anko's comments helped very much when he asked her about it.

00000000

_Two weeks ago._

"_Hey Anko?" Naruto asked suddenly. They were alone in his house eating breakfast. Fu said something about going out to go get some fresh air before she helped him pack for the Inuzuka compounds. It'd be tough, because Naruto was going to have to compress an apartment's worth of items and material goods into a single room's. Everything else would go to storage._

"_Yeah kid?" She asked with a mouthful of eggs and bacon. It was a simple dish, but he really knew how to make it._

"_I need some... help. Or advice, I guess."_

"_Okay, what do you need?"_

"_What do you do, when… a lot of people like you?"_

_Anko quirked a brow at him. "You're going to have to be a bit more specific in your problems than that."_

_Naruto took a deep breath and started again. "What do you do when there's a person who likes you, in a… lovey kind of way, but you don't feel the same way about them?"_

"_Oooohhhhhh. Little Naruto-kun has some admirers. Who are they? Spill the beans." Anko asked intrusively._

_Naruto shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. "It's Fu, and Tenten, and Hinata."_

"_Hinata? You mean the Hyuuga heiress? That's quite the catch young grasshopper. I'm so proud of you."_

"_But I don't like any of them." Naruto stated helplessly._

"_Do you dislike them then?"_

"_No, I just don't like them."_

"_Then what's the problem?"_

"_They like me more than I like them. What if they confess to me? Am I just supposed to turn them down?" Naruto didn't want to do that, to cause someone pain and heartbreak._

"_No, you're supposed to accept and go on some dates with them. Listen kid, if every single relationship in the world was born from mutual attraction, then there'd be a lot less of them in the world. If you don't know much about her, and she confesses to you, then you're supposed to accept because for all you know, you could be soul mates."_

"_But I like someone else."_

"_For god's sake kid, are you still on that pink haired girl? I scoped her out a bit, don't exactly see what's so great about her."_

"_You stalked her?" Naruto asked incredulously._

"_Does that honestly surprise you at this point?"_

"_I guess not. Okay, but there are three of them that I like. I can't be with all three at once."_

"_What's stopping you?"_

"_The fact that… it's not right?"_

"_If they're okay with it and you're okay with it, then what's wrong?"_

"_But I'm not okay with it!"_

"_You aren't? Wouldn't all guys trip head over heels to be involved with multiple girlfriends?"_

"_Not me. It's not right. It's… devaluing the uhhh… rights and sexuality of women everywhere?"_

"_Where the fuck did you hear that crock bullshit."_

_It was one of his more… feminist academy teachers. The one who taught sex Ed._

"_Okay, well here's this. If you deny dating more than one person for the sole fact _you_ are not comfortable doing so, then you're devaluing the rights and sexuality of the girls that you're turning down."_

"_Eh, just. Okay." Naruto said, giving up. He really didn't want to talk about it right now, too confusing._

_Keys jangled from outside the apartment, Fu was trying to get in from her walk about. Anko grinned mischievously at Naruto. "Be careful, looks like you're sharing your bed with your admirer."_

"_Don't you say one goddamn word." Naruto warned._

_Anko's only response was to smile dangerously at him._

_He never should have told her anything._

_00000000_

Naruto decided to let whatever happen, happen. He was 13 and not at all knowledgeable in the concepts of advanced romanticism.

Is there a class for that? Romanticism 101. He'd have to check up on that at some point.

Getting back to the fight at hand, Fu and Naruto were stuck in a deadlock like they'd never seen before. The longest spars between weapon users never lasted longer than about 20 or so minutes, and that was the upper limit. They had been sparring with their weapons for a good two hours or so. Neither giving the other any advantages or openings.

Their fighting had a certain grace to it. Not in that there were jumps and twirls and euphonic movements all over the place. More in the fact that they didn't let a single movement go to waste. That every step or swing led into another and that they were all practiced strikes heading towards exactly where the user intended them to go. Beauty in pragmatism.

Anko and Jiraiya looked at the two duke it out from the upper branches of the trees. "They're getting really good at fighting." Anko remarked.

"No they aren't. It is true that their form is getting more precise, they're just learning how to fight each other, not other opponents. Sooner or later they're going to have to get different partners." Jiraiya said.

"I was talking to myself you fucking pervert." Anko said coldly.

Jiraiya sighed. "We've talked about this Anko, I didn't know it was you in the bath."

"And I don't give any fucks." Given her status as the student of Orochimaru, she knew Jiraiya in passing as a kind of estranged uncle figure. He kinda showed up every now and again, but they didn't really talk much. There wasn't much to talk about except for the snake Sannin and they had bad memories associated with him, so they didn't.

The conversation dropped off for a while as the two continued to look at the sparring Jinchuuriki. "What opponents were you thinking of?" Anko finally asked.

"A mission maybe. Bandits, missing nin, there are any number of missions every day asking about them. It might be some good experience for both of them."

"Are you kidding? There's no way the village would sign off on a mission taking on bandits and missing nin with Naruto and Fu on it. I've heard about the Zabuza incident. Naruto almost died on a C turned A, the Third won't let him on another until he's sure Naruto will be safe. Or what about Fu? She's the most powerful weapon that Taki has. If we lose her, we'd be in a political shit storm."

"Then we ask for talent within the village." Jiraiya said. "This chunin exam will be determined by how well the kids will be able to work with each other. Are Izumo and Kotetsu still around? If memory serves, they're the best example of synchronous fighting."

"I could call in a few favors." Anko said.

Jiraiya smirked at the Mitarashi. "You see what happens when we think together? We get things done."

"I'm still not going to forgive you." She said coldly.

"Oh come on Anko-chan, don't be like that."

A snake slithered down from the branch above Jiraiya and hissed in his ear. "Don't call me Anko-chan" She warned.

00000000

"**Summoning"** Naruto shouted out and slammed his palm against the rocky ground. A tiny little toad popped up from the resounding smoke.

"Yo." It said, raising its hand in greeting. "Nice to see you again for what, the thirtieth time?" Naruto wasn't getting much success in way of summoning anything useful for battle. He was able to get a small toad every now again, the most common one being Gamakichi, a blue and orange toad that likes sweets.

"Yeah, yeah. You know the drill." The toad saluted and poofed away in some smoke.

Jiraiya looked away from his telescope to see the Jinchuuriki's struggles. The summoning jutsu was a very chakra intensive form of reverse spatial teleportation. To get even one summon the size of a large dog, one would have to have jonin level reserves. Naruto's reserves were at about that point, but he didn't know much in ways of chakra control. Chakra control dictated how well you use the chakra at your disposal, but even a person with the greatest chakra control in the world wouldn't be able to suddenly get a jutsu on the first try. Every jutsu has a specific way to control and manipulate the chakra that is only helped by things like chakra control.

Jutsu's are basically molds in which chakra is shaped into. Handseals make the general form and the person must mold the chakra into the shape of the mold. Chakra control gives the tools that the user needs in order to shape the chakra at a fine detail. It doesn't matter how well one knows a mold if they don't have the tools to get the chakra into its shape.

Naruto didn't have that option. What he did have was the chakra of one of the mightiest beings ever spawned sealed into his gut. If he could get a hold of that chakra, then he'd be able to complete the jutsu on a grand scale.

An analogy would be that the mold for the summoning jutsu is in the shape of a pot, or something. If one could manipulate the chakra correctly, they could make the chakra stretch into its shape with the center being hollow. Naruto had enough chakra to where he could fill up the entire thing with chakra, filling the mold, but didn't have the chakra to stretch it out.

Not every jutsu works that way, but most area-of-effect and spatial jutsu do.

Whatever the case was, Naruto had enough chakra to completely fill up a small pot, meaning he got a small toad. If he had the chakra control, he could probably shape that amount into a medium sized pot at least, but he didn't.

Jiraiya looked at Naruto as he whooped in joy. He got a slightly larger toad that time.

It wouldn't be enough if that was the amount of progress he had to show for two weeks of work.

"Hey, kid!" Jiraiya shouted at him.

Naruto looked up from the toad as it just despawned. "What?"

"You need help with that jutsu?"

Naruto gave him a hard stare. "I've been needing help with it for a while!"

"Well I've somewhere that's really good for learning how to do it."

"Really?!"

"Yeah kid."

Anko was probably going to kill him for trying this.

Naruto scrambled up to the rock where Jiraiya was sat at as a vantage point for peeking on the women in the pool below. "You mean it?" He asked.

Yeah, she was definitely going to try to kill him. Whelp, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

00000000

_12 days ago._

_Ever since Shikamaru got a hold of the guidebook, Naruto hadn't seen hide nor hair from the lazy Nara. At first he was worried that Shikamaru told someone important about it, but by the time night fell on the second day of silence, he decided that even if Shikamaru did tell someone, they probably wouldn't have believed him. That didn't really explain his disappearance though. Whenever Naruto went to the compounds, his mom explained to Naruto that he was too busy to visit, which Naruto knew was complete bullshit. There was no way that Shikamaru was too busy with something other than the game he found himself in to chew over._

_Naruto was in the guest room of Tsume's house. He finally got everything he needed all moved and unpacked and was in the process of nursing a headache with his medical ninjutsu. They usually were easier to handle if he took care of them on a case by case basis instead of falling asleep before most of them dispelled._

_There was a knock on his door, starting Naruto away from his headache nursing. Kashikoi looked up from her little cushion on the floor in suspicion. "Hey Naruto." Came the tired sounding voice of Shikamaru._

_Naruto got up from his bed and let Shikamaru in. He was kind of nervous. On further reflection on his introduction of the game to Shikamaru, he realized that he probably should have given Shikamaru a bit more information before forcibly recruiting him._

_Shikamaru walked into the room with his usual lazy and aloof expression. In his hands was the beige handbook and one very large book about the size of a rather informative encyclopedia. "Took me a while to find you." Shikamaru remarked. "Didn't know you moved. Didn't know you became an honorary Inuzuka. Didn't know you're living in Kiba's house." These words were said with a lazy countenance, but they were also somehow sharp, biting even. "You see, the thing is, people say that us Nara are really smart. We're not smart. Or at least, we're not book smart. We just know how to take information that people usually overlook and formulate plans and actions based on that information to the best of our ability."_

_Even though Shikamaru paused, Naruto didn't comment into his monologue. It sounded more than a little rehearsed._

"_So." Shikamaru finally said. "You are going to give me as much information on this game as you have. Then, I'm going to make a plan."_

"_A plan to do what?"_

_Shikamaru smirked. "A plan to break the game."_

00000000

As it turns out, Shikamaru only ever got one extra piece of 'game hardware'. A huge book that detailed the inner workings of the game. It was called the _walkthrough hand guide._ Whatever the case was, Shikamaru found some very interesting things out from the walkthrough.

Namely, although he was now officially 'a part of the game', he wasn't affected by stat changes. Or at least not to the extent that Naruto was. His stats were still listed and he could still level up, but the points were auto-assigned. He also couldn't do anything to get merit points, but for some reason, he could make changes to Naruto's own stats through Naruto's handbook.

It was a very strange and obtuse party system.

From the day that he dedicated to reading the walkthrough, Shikamaru figured out a short term training goal for Naruto to try and achieve. He told the Uzumaki to put all the points he had into his Intelligence. From the book, he learned that the more Intelligence one has, the more that their mental output could remain unburdened. Meaning that the more Intelligence he has, the more shadow clones he could safely make. No more debilitating headaches for Naruto.

He also told Naruto to not put any attribute points into anything revolving around fighting or fighting styles. The reason for this was that Naruto was able to get points on his own through training. If he put points into the sections where he could have advanced without the use of points, they would be wasted. If Naruto's bojutsu form was 175/200, he wouldn't be able to advance any farther through the conventional means because he would need a really good teacher and battle experience to bump it up, so that would be a good point to use the attribute points. If the form was 100/200 and he put attribute points in there when he could have still trained to get the points up, those points would be wasted.

Shikamaru also wasn't very willing to take advantage of the game for his own personal gain. He didn't want to be a super double SSSSS-ranked shinobi who could fire lasers out his eyes and control people at will and grow bone swords out his joints and make lava erupt from the ground. No, he was just an average shinobi who wanted to make an average living and live an average life. He was more than content to just learn about the game and instruct Naruto on how to beat it.

Nothing more, nothing less.

He also figured that going to the higher ups at the village would be a horrible idea. Finding out one of their shinobi had the potential to get every single kekai genkai in existence would mean horrible experimentations on Naruto. No, the safest thing to do was find out how to get the game to loose its hold them and get out of it as soon as possible. Becoming the shinobi who could turn into God sounded like a good idea, but Shikamaru came to the conclusion that there was no way the game was as good as it pretended to be. There had to be terrible consequences with going along with the game.

Whatever the case was, while Shikamaru was trying to figure out how to break the game, Naruto'd be trying his best to get ready for the exam. That revolved around getting his tailor skill up, his forging skill up, upping his intelligence, and working on teamwork with Fu. Oh, and he'd have to get into his mindscape somehow.

00000000

With Jiraiya and Naruto

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

Naruto screamed as the slick points flew past him as he fell faster and faster down the chasm. The air pushed up against him crushing force. He was so going to kill that perverted sage. Even if he died, Naruto decided that he was going to haunt that fucker to death.

The air pushed against his torso and face at crushing forces. Naruto couldn't breathe. He couldn't hear. He couldn't see.

'I'm going to die, aren't I?' Naruto thought out before finally giving in to the G-forces and falling unconscious.

When he woke up next, he was covered in some sort of liquid. There was only ambient light giving him a small understanding of where he was. "What the fuck?" he whispered.

Naruto stood up with slight difficulty. "Where am I?" It was a one way corridor leading off into obscurity. Naruto lifted his legs through the water and began to walk forward. The only way to go.

Pipes filled the ceilings and leaked a strange colored water every now and again. The liquid that Naruto was walking through didn't feel like water. It parted around his legs effortlessly, leaving him almost unimpeded through the walkway.

An ominous sound reverberated through the hall, vibrating all of Naruto's surroundings. "Am I dead?" Naruto called out. "'Cuz this is really creepy."

Eventually, Naruto made it into a circular area filled up the knee with water. Against one side was a wall made of iron bars and held in place by a piece of paper that had the word 'seal' on it. "Hello?" Naruto called out again.

"**Closer."** An ominous sounding voice said from within the room.

Naruto took a few tentative steps forward before huge claws slammed against and through the iron bars. Naruto backpedaled wildly before falling on his ass in the lukewarm water. "K-Kyuubi?"

"**So my jailor finally graces me with his presence. Don't I feel special?" **The voice was cutting, sarcastic, and menacing. When Fu went on describing Chomei, she always used warm and friendly words, making Naruto all the more eager to meet his bijuu. This being in front of Naruto was not warm and friendly.

"**No words? Of course you have no words. You fear me."**

Naruto got up from his ass and confronted the menacing pair of eyes through the bars. "I-I don't fear you."

Barking laughter echoed through the chamber. **"Don't fear me? HA, of course you fear me! I can feel hatred. I can feel fear and you are full of it."**

"I don't fear you." Naruto said more boldly this time.

"**Lies. So what do you need from me? What am I talking about? You need my power. Else you'll die."**

Naruto rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, I guess I do." Just as he said that, a reddish sludge leaked through the bars and lapped at Naruto's feet.

"**I suppose I need you to live. After all, if you die, I die."** The eyes blinked away, leaving Naruto in the semi-ambient light.

"Wait!" Naruto called out. This was so not how he expected meeting the Kyuubi would be like.

The voice came from the bars once more, but there was no sign of the eyes. **"What do you want? Little human."**

"I- eh, err…"

"**WHAT do you want?!"**

"What's your name?" Naruto finally said. "I mean… the Nanabi's name is Chomei. What's yours?"

"**Hmph. I wouldn't tell a human my name even if my life depended on it. Now go. This conversation is over."**

Naruto felt a pulling sensation on his gut. The red chakra began wrapping its ropy limbs around him, engulfing him with the power of a bijuu. "Wait." Naruto called out before getting forcefully ejected from his mindscape.

00000000

A few hours later.

"Hey Anko, I'm feeling fine. You can let me down now." Naruto said tiredly into Anko's ear from her back.

"Nope. Not going to happen." Anko said grumpily.

"Anko…"

"What?" She snapped.

"Aren't you being a little overprotective? You do chase me and Fu with venomous snakes. Jiraiya pushing me off a cliff isn't that bad in comparison." The reason for his taking the pervert's side in the matter stemmed from the fact that when Anko learned what Jiraiya had done when Naruto hopped out of the crevice on the back of Gambunta, she attacked him with true intent to kill. He managed to slip away, but Naruto still saw all of what she was capable of when completely pissed the fuck off.

"The snakes are just a little incentive to run faster. And there's a huge difference between what I'm allowed to do as your master and what he's allowed to do as a pervert. If you died from getting thrown off a cliff, the Third would have my head."

"Well at least I got to meet the Kyuubi."

"Fat lot good that did. He sounds like a prick."

"Yeah, I guess."

Anko stewed in silence for a little while after that remark, thinking of what she was going to say next. "Hey brat?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't die."

Naruto chuckled a little bit before repositioning himself on her back. "I'm not going to die until I become hokage. Believe it."

"Do you promise?"

"What?"

"Do you promise?"

Naruto looked at the back of her neck in confusion. Anko was acting strange. It wasn't hard for Naruto to accidentally piss her off, but that afternoon was the first time he had seen her genuinely angry. Angry without the sadistic smirk attached to it. Not only that, but at the moment she had a subdued demeanor. He didn't really know what to do. This Anko he didn't have much experience with.

Naruto settled for hugging her back tightly. "Yeah, I promise Anko."

She leaned her head forward so her bangs concealed her eyes. She was mostly unreadable at the moment, but if you were there and had a keen eyesight, you would see tiny little twinkling droplets fall from her face. "I'm going to hold you to that."

Naruto didn't say anything after that. Although he did have an idea that something big just happened.

Something important.

**AN/ Hello. Gent here.**

**The training arc is going to be about 2 more chapters long. I'm going to go into more detail of Naruto's newfound stats in the next one.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	15. a second middle to the month of training

Chapter 15

**AN/ There was a bit more thought put into this idea than I thought there would be. Just so I can make it perfectly clear, despite differing cultural values between western and eastern cultures along with the fact that Naruto seems to take place in a fictionalized universe where past and present technologies and ideas mix, fourteen is still young enough to the point where perving on a person that age would render one a pedophile, in my understanding of that universe at least. I understand that the more apt term would be a hebephile, but no one sans you guys knows that term and I doubt Anko would have either.**

**Can we stop talking about this now?**

**Onward with the story**

Two days before the exam finals.

Naruto leaned his head back and sighed explosively. The stock market wasn't looking too good at the moment. He just lost about $10,000 worth of shares in the Silver Stock. "Hey Shikamaru, wanna help me with the stock market?" He asked the lazy Nara.

"Nope." The Nara said tiredly as he lethargically flipped a page through his walkthrough thingy. Although the guide did entail everything about every skill and every mechanic and everything within the game from a mechanical perspective and even though he had already skimmed the book, he found absolutely no mention of the future or past Quests or Random Encounters. Meaning precognition was out the window as far as his skill goes.

"Why not?" Naruto asked in a whiney voice. "You're super smart, you'd make bank with the stock market." The two were located within Naruto's room at the Inuzuka residence and were going over their respective 'hardware' as they have taken to calling them.

"Because I'm trying to break the game, not the economy."

"Oh come on. I need some extra dough for my business venture."

Shikamaru looked up from the walkthrough to look at him quizzically. "Your new business venture? Why are you taking so much time to expand your empire anyway?"

"It's not really an empire right now, but it will be. And I'm not spending a lot of time on it. Just glancing through it every night and making a few changes."

Shikamaru sighed into his palm. "Okay, I'll bite. What's this business venture?"

"I'm going to buy a silk farm, then a fabric textile manufacturer. After that, I'll be able to obtain goodies to make expensive clothes rather cheaply. Since Sand is _really_ in the market for silk clothing because of its climate, I'm going to open up trade opportunities there. I'm going to get so much profit from it." Naruto said, rubbing his palms together evilly.

Although not extensive, Shikamaru did have a good knowledge on how economic business theory worked. "How are you going to do that? I have no doubt that there's already a huge chain there that sells them all the silk clothing they need. If they want, they can just drive down the prices enough to run you out of business. It's common practice to get rid of young upstart companies, who have better goods than they do, that way."

"Ah yes, Shikamaru. But you forget that I get free labor for the most part. So long as I have droves of shadow clones working on making the clothing, AKA unpaid labor, I can drive down the prices all I want and still make money."

Shikamaru didn't seem amused. "You're getting way too into this. For all we know, this could just be a bait-and-switch. Getting you to rely on the book and suddenly yoinking it away."

"Well I haven't heard much about you finding out how to break the game." Naruto said indignantly. "Plus, I'm not getting too into this. For me, this expansion of the empire thing is just a game. I really couldn't care if I had all the money in the whole goddamned world. It's just pretty fun to build something up."

"Troublesome. Okay, go on with your empire building, it doesn't really concern me. For your information, I have actually learned a few things about this whole thing." Shikamaru said offhandedly.

Naruto's eyes bugged open. "Really? Why haven't you told me yet?"

"Because right now, it's all unsubstantiated. Just- Here." Shikamaru got up from his reasonably comfortable sitting place and fell on Naruto's bed, then showed him some text in the tutorial. Naruto faintly red out **TOBI Inc.** in big bold letters.

"So what?" Naruto asked.

"So this is obviously some sort of calling card. I looked into the official business registration for all of the elemental nations and this was listed in the Land of Fire's own database. It was active for a grand total of two days and was headed by someone named Tobi Guruguru."

"So… wait. This guy, Tobi Guruguru, made this game? So all we have to do is to find him and get him to get rid of it." Naruto said in sudden realization. He happily thrust his closed fist for a bumping, but was sadly left hanging.

"I already checked the populous register. Nobody named Tobi Guruguru exists in the Land of Fire, nor has he ever existed here. I have no idea how he got a corporation running without being a person, or why he only left it running for two days. I assume that it was to issue this game in the first place."

Naruto's outstretched hand wilted downwards. "What do we do now then?"

Shikamaru leaned back and let out a large breath of air. "The only lead we have is this Tobi guy. We're at square one when it comes to pursuing him. Not to mention this happened 14 years ago, which'd make it even harder to track him down."

Naruto cracked a smile. He knew just the guy who was a self-proclaimed spymaster.

00000000

A while later, Konoha proper.

Naruto was on a walk.

Yes, that's right. Naruto was a jaunty little walk in the middle of Konoha. He had no destination in mind, nor was he doing it for the sake of Kashikoi, who was snoozing in a little specially made pouch in his Inuzuka Training outfit.

She really was just an adorable little thing. Foxes, Naruto concluded through his limited interactions with domesticated animals, were like the perfect mixture between dogs and cats. She had the autonomy and individuality that cats possessed along with a loyalty and willingness to cuddle that dogs had.

She hummed a little in his jacket and he opened it slightly to let some cool air waft in and cool off the overheated vulpine. Canine animals of the Inuzuka clan possessed a greater ability to communicate than their other domesticated counterparts. In fact, Naruto often found communicating with Kashikoi to be more like communicating with a human who couldn't speak. Although he was learning what her various yips, barks, and growls symbolized, he already had a good understanding of communication with Kashikoi.

Most of their combat synchronism came from him attacking and misdirecting the enemy whilst Kashikoi ran interference by inflicting small, very painful bites and jabs to her opponent. It was less the conventional Inuzuka combat where they fought evenly as equals, and more like they played their strengths to each other well. Kashikoi was fast and very good at kitting the tendons and other such areas of weakness on a human body, while Naruto demanded a presence that directed attention away from the fox and allowed her to do what she wanted to do.

It was a good system. He even found himself inexplicably drawn to the fox on an emotional level. Not really the attachment that one would find between fox and man, more like the attachment between man and man, or partner and partner. Just as her ability to communicate with humans was more than the average animal, so was her personality and thought process more developed. Naruto observed her during her moments of stubbornness, anger, happiness, hyperness, hunger, thirst, sadness, joviality, and came to the conclusion that she acted more human than some humans he had met and interacted with quite frequently. She had emotions, not just feelings and sensations that other animals had.

On a whim, Naruto reached in and started stroking the fox's soft fur. Foxes didn't really purr, per say, more like they gave off a pleased growling sound. Naruto smiled lightly, before it turned into a sour grimace.

'I should stop by the hospital later.' He thought solemnly.

Just as he was about to turn direction and head to the shinobi hospital, there was a tapping on his shoulder. He whirled around and was met face to face with someone who had been on his mind rather prolifically throughout the month.

Tenten's already tan skin had turned a shade darker, putting her almost to the level that Fu's was at. Her clothing now consisted of loose white robes that fell over her body, presumably to protect her from the sun's harmful rays. And most importantly, she was giving him a big toothy grin. "Heya Naruto." She said jovially.

The exams were in two days, but he didn't really connect the dots that Tenten and co. would be coming around in that time frame to get reacquainted with Konoha's climate and its slightly shifted time zone. So he nervously scratched the back of his neck and returned the toothy grin, albeit slightly apprehensively. "Hey Tenten, what's up? I didn't know you'd be coming around."

"Oh you know… just came back from Sand. It's really hot there, you know." Even he knew that she was stalling for time based on her tone of voice. "Hey, now that I'm back, wanna go get something to eat? Catch up some?"

Well it's not like he had any reason to disagree. What's the harm in one date anyway? "Yeah, sure. Do you have anywhere in mind?"

"I know a good seafood place." Tenten retreated on that thought a bit. "It's a bit pricy though, maybe we could-"

"No no no." Naruto quickly interrupted. "Money isn't a problem. We could definitely go there."

Tenten gave him a slight quizzical look. "Are you sure? The ninja orphan monthly stipend would barely cover it."

Naruto gave her a stupid, vague smile. "Oh don't worry. I've been taking a lot of jobs lately."

She kicked the ground in front of her, kicking up small portions of dust. "Well… if you're sure…"

"So long as you're sure the food is good, I don't mind."

Tenten giggled a little bit and smiled widely once more. "Okay, let's go."

00000000

Fu was breathing deeply and evenly, or at least she was trying her hardest to. The red chakra felt caustic and corrosive against her skin. She was filled with strange, swirling emotions and didn't know how to get them out of her system. Two red extensions were languidly flowing out of her back in the general shape of a dragonfly's wings, while one long, needle-thin extension was growing out of her tailbone.

Her eyes shot open and took in the world around her. The orange from her iris and pupil melted into her sclera, turning her eyes into pools of inky orangeness. With the chakra moving around her eyes and head, she was capable of seeing everything in front of her to the minute detail. The small bristles on pieces of grass in front of her, she could count them. The beats of the wings on the fly buzzing around her headspace, she could follow them. The slight discoloration on the leaves fluttering in the wind, she could discern them.

Whenever she went on Chomei's chakra, it was always a strange experience for her. All of her senses and emotions that she was custom to on a daily basis were amplified by however many tails she was using, or at least it seemed that way. She could never get to the fourth tail, where two pairs of wings would sprout out of her back and the one on her tailbone would melt to nothingness, because she would be overwhelmed by everything around her and either go unconscious or go on a rampage through the woods.

Not exactly a fun experience for anybody.

Yugito alighted down in front of her and gave her a stare of disapproval. She had gotten a time extension on her vacation from the Raikage, seeing as she wasn't exactly on vacation while teaching a Jinchuuriki how to handle her powers. "You're not supposed to work on the chakra while I'm away." She said plainly.

"I-I'm sorry… I-" Fu was having troubles with speaking whilst under the effects of Chomei's chakra. Any attention away from controlling her emotions would be attention not wisely used.

"Cut off the chakra." Yugito said. This was mostly directed to Chomei as opposed to Fu, who could hear everything Fu could.

Soon enough, the red cloak retreated back into her, leaving her to fall forward onto the soft ground. Three tails worth of chakra always overtaxed her system. Yugito clicked her tongue in disapproval. "You know there's a chance you could go haywire. If I'm not around when you do, who knows what could happen to you and the Hidden Leaf."

"I can handle it." Fu said softly.

"No, you can't. You've made a lot of progress, but three tails is just too much for you to handle."

"How can I handle more then?" Fu asked caustically.

"You don't. Not until you can get your emotions under control and you get used to the sudden sense amplification."

Fu crawled over to a tree and used it as a support to keep her leaned up against it. They'd had this conversation a few times before. Fu always reached out for too much and Yugito scolded her for it.

The Niibi Jinchuuriki exhaled loudly and leaned down at the same tree trunk. It was small in circumference, so they were at an angle rather than side by side. "You've got a lot of hate bottle up inside you." Yugito remarked.

Fu craned her neck to the side. Now that hadn't come up in conversation before. "What?" She asked.

"Hate." Yugito said simply. "You have a lot of it. Hate and confusion and sadness but mostly hate."

"What do you know about me?" Fu asked brusquely. Although they had bonded and gotten to know each other rather well over the course of the month that Yugito was teaching her, Fu was just too tired and drained to come up with cordial responses at that point.

"You're a Jinchuuriki, so you garner a lot of hate within your community because you act as a reminder of all the people who died due to Chomei. You don't have a lot of friends and the ones you do, you're scared that they're going to abandon you. You want to get stronger and stronger in order to help Naruto win the tournament because he is one of the very few people who like and respect you. Any of these things ringing the bell?"

Fu pouted and looked to the side. "So what?"

Yugito took a while to answer, choosing to look at the leaves rustling in the branches of the great trees surrounding her and Fu. "So, if you want to get better at controlling Chomei's chakra, you have to either let go of or control your anger."

"You say that like it's so easy."

"If that's the way it sounded, I didn't mean it to. It's hard to let go of your hatred. It's hard to not let your hatred control you. Very very few people are fit to be Jinchuuriki, because everyone has a darkness in them. But because of your condition, that darkness expands and spreads further into you. It will eventually take over your entire being."

This was definitely news to Fu, who looked up in surprise at this new information. "Is there any way to not make that happen?"

"If there's a hole deep inside of you, all you have to do is fill that up with something. I, personally, threw myself into my work. Became the best jonin that I could be. Now I'm one of the strongest people in Hidden Cloud, even without Matatabi's chakra. Find something to fill the hole up with and ignoring your hatred will be easier, I promise." Yugito said softly, in a rare moment of sympathy and empathy. "But you also have it harder than I do. Chomei has a lot more chakra than Matatabi, so if you want to control all of it, you're going to have to get better at controlling your emotions than I ever will be."

Yugito got up from the trees and stretched her muscles out, working out the kinks in her system. "I'm going to the hotsprings. You should come with me, relax before the tournament."

Fu nodded and weakly got to her feet. 'Something to fill a hole. What do I have for that?'

00000000

7 levels.

From level 6 to level 8 in the Forest of Death, then from 8 to 13 in the month of training. Jobs, sparring, teamwork exercises, practicing ninjutsu and other such ninja ventures all increased his experience. 35 total stat points gained, 20 of which went into intelligence, upping it to 33. Another 10 went to strength and the last 5 went to chakra control, bringing them both up to 26.

181 attribute points and 3 merit points. At Shikamaru's behest, he didn't invest in any kekai genkai or anything else that might change his genetic code. It was one thing to gain a strain of genetics from a rather virile clan, it was a whole other thing to suddenly gain a kekai genkai that's been dead for several millennia. So he bought the merits for sealing, chakra puppetry, and sensing using his merit points.

He didn't have anyone to teach him chakra puppetry or sensing, so that's what he put the attribute points into. He had already spent 15 points on seduction, so he put 55 into maxing out his trap laying, trap detection, and field medicine. None of these had any mutations, they merely put him at the highest point he could possibly be in those respective fields. If there was even a whiff of a trap, he'd be able to see it. His traps were guaranteed to work and be almost impossible to detect. He was so good at field medicine, he was practically delegated into the title of 'field surgeon'. He put the remaining 111 points into his new puppetry and sensing skills, making the three new skills look something like this.

_Sealing:_

_Mastery 30/200_

_Formulaic complexity 17/1000_

_Sealing cryptography 9/1000_

He didn't spend any attribute points on this, letting Jiraiya give him the points through extensive instruction. Mastery included how fast and well he implemented his seals, Formulaic complexity was the extent of what he could make on his own, and Cryptography included how well he was capable of understanding and breaking other people's seals.

_Sensing:_

_Range 26/200_

_Discerning 30/200_

Sensing's stats were rather self-explanatory.

_Chakra puppetry:_

_Mechanical genius 25/200_

_Multi-perception 30/200_

Mechanical genius outlined his knowledge in the mechanics of how puppets work and their inner wirings amongst other things, while Multi-perception framed his ability to control the amount and complexity of his puppets.

In fact, while experimenting on making simple little puppets with very inane uses, he found out that puppetry was in his recipe book, under carpentry. He didn't know why. Puppetry was composed of a lot of things, like wirings, the making and uses of metal, combined with shaping and carving of the wood. It was a good thing Mr. Higurashi also dabbled in woodwork.

Right now his carpentry skill was at 20/50, and the basic puppetry under the carpentry section of the recipe book was at 35/50. Using this, he was able to make a few special little surprises for the tournament. Oh yes, this was going to be fun.

His medical knowledge was expanding, albeit at a slower rate than before. His ability reaching a solid 80/400 and his learning rate hitting 50/200. With these advances, he was now able to cure slight venom and poison wounds, diagnose patients with what they have exactly to what they have, do slight inner body trauma work, and a little bit of nerve therapy and reattachment. This skill was looking to be a very awesome find.

Also, using his blacksmithing ability along with his tailoring and carpentry, he made a new bo staff. The last one was good and all, but it was only made for beginner use. Now that he thought of himself as a solid intermediate, he did a few redesigns on this one. Namely, creating and using soft leather strips for sure gripping; adding metal studs and reinforcement all along the edges of the staff, making it capable of redirecting sword strikes so they didn't slide along the edge and cut his fingers off; and a long piece of bamboo wood, allowing for flexibility and strength to coexist within the staff. He was also now capable of making two different types of senbon, ones that were blunted on one end for better hand to hand use and ones that were thinner, making them more capable of slipping in between ribs to create damage.

His tailoring was going well. Now capable of making various sets of clothing, all with their own bonuses to being made. Although none were as good as either the Mitarashi or the Inuzuka training suits, so he still predominantly wore those around.

He also noticed that he'd been getting a lot more looks around than he usually did. Unknown to him at the moment, that was because both the training suits emphasized his developing musculature. Thanks to increases in the strength stat, his muscles were developing not only in use, but also in definition.

"What are you looking at?"

"Huh?" Tenten asked, a little preoccupied.

"You keep on looking down. Do I have something on my jacket…" He began picking at and looking all over his front to see if he accidentally spilled some of the lobster he was dining on.

Tenten blushed a little bit at being found out staring at his chest and abdomen. Since there was nothing holding his jacket closed, it flapped open, revealing his torso. It was hot out, so he decided to forgo the shirt underneath the jacket, only drawing away Tenten's attention more. "No no. Hehe." She giggled nervously. "There's nothing there."

"Then… what-"

"So what's it like being an Inuzuka?" Tenten asked. Up until she got distracted, they had been having a rather enlightening conversation about how their lives went for the month of training so far. They made a verbal agreement to not talk about any training they did, only going into what they liked or thought was worth mentioning. Such as Fujitsu's horrible sunburn, which Tenten thought was funny to no end; or the fact that Naruto was now an honorary Inuzuka.

"Well I'm not really an Inuzuka." Naruto professed. Just at that moment, Kashikoi poked her head out of Naruto's inner jacket pocket and peered at Tenten. She hopped up onto the table, making sure to not touch any of the edibles, and sat directly in front of the Higurashi.

Said Higurashi 'aww'ed at the cuteness displayed and picked her up to cuddle her to her chest. "You've got a fox!?" She said in between head ruffles. "I didn't know Inuzukas had foxes."

As she continued to hold the fox to her body, Naruto leaned back and braced the back of his head in his hands. "Yeah, they're a canine family and foxes are canines, I guess." Kashikoi yipped in agreement.

Tenten started idly playing with the fox's ears. It was a good thing that his clothing signified his clan status. Although many restaurants had hard rules against animals joining the meals along with their human counterparts, there were a few that allowed well-behaved ninken in with their masters. "What's this little guy's name?" Tenten asked in a cutesy voice.

"Her name is Kashikoi."

"Well she is just so adorable." Kashikoi yipped in agreement.

Just then, a waiter came by and placed a check on the table and left. The restaurant they were dining at was definitely on the fancier side of eateries, but was still definitely a more shinobi oriented dwelling. The dress code wasn't exactly enforced, so the people eating there spanned nearly all the shinobi disciplines' dressing. From a medic smock, to a cryptologist's lab coat, to Hyuuga robes, and all the way to Sand robes and an Inuzuka jacket.

Naruto picked up the tab to check the amount and took out his gama-chan in order to place the required bills inside. Tenten's eyes widened as she saw the twenties keep on piling in. The eatery was definitely on the more expensive side of places, but it had good portion sizes and tasty food. That's all Naruto really asks for when it comes to restaurants. "N-Naruto… are you sure you can pay for this?" Tenten asked fearfully. Even if he had been taking more jobs than normal, a genin's pay wasn't exactly the largest of quantities when doing D-ranks.

Kashikoi leapt suddenly from her arms and into Naruto's lap, where she snuggled into. Why was Tenten looking all wide-eyed? Oh, yeah. That's right. He was handling large sums of money when paying for both of them. Not only did that signify he was rather affluent, but also that he considered this little outing a date.

"This is from… the betting circles." Naruto said nonchalantly. He'd been getting pretty good at lying as of late and didn't think he'd be able to explain how he was now in charge of a developing and growing tailor business.

"The… betting circles? Isn't that a bit shady?"

Indeed, there had been a few people who accosted him to throw the matches for certain people with a prize of a lot of money; although he declined these offers, word got out that those particular people told him to throw the match and as such a few other people came by and offered him money to _not_ throw the match. As luck would have it, Naruto accepted money from the latter type of people. It wasn't like he was planning on throwing any matches anyway. Might as well get money from not doing it.

As Naruto explained the whole 'getting money from fighting' thing to Tenten, the waiter came by to pick up the check along with the generous tip.

Even it was on-the-fly, it was a good date nonetheless. Tenten was a really nice girl and Naruto really enjoyed hanging out with her.

Maybe getting together with her wouldn't be the worst thing imaginable.

00000000

A few hours later.

Naruto sat at the bed of a very sick, dying man. His entire torso was ripped up and covered in a large amount of bandages. Even with modern medical ninjutsu, the severing of his arteries and destruction of some of his internal organs had been horrible on his brain, which went into a coma due to the shock.

His name was Hayate Gekko, the previous chunin exam's proctor. The only reason he was still fitfully drawing breath was the kid sitting next to him.

It wasn't that Naruto particularly liked Hayate, it just felt like… Naruto was responsible for the fact he wasn't conscious.

During a little night walk, Naruto happened upon a dangerously hurt man. Naruto immediately tried to resuscitate him by healing his wounds, but Naruto wasn't skilled enough. Eventually, several minutes in, it was clear to Naruto that he wouldn't be able to save him. It was then that he started freaking out. Red chakra began to mix with the green of the medical ninjutsu, turning it a dirty brown. The chakra had even worse effects on the man, but was why he was still alive. It destroyed many of the cells within the man's chest, but it also advocated for extreme cellular growth. It slowed down his processes enough to where he nearly stopped bleeding, but by then he had terrible lung cancer from the accelerated growth.

It was horrible and Naruto felt personally responsible for it. So he came every once and a while to check up on him to see how he was doing.

There was a breeze of wind to his right. He didn't have to look to know that it was Yugao, Hayate's lover. She put the flowers in her hand into the vase at his bedside and threw away the wilted ones. To his knowledge, it appeared that Yugao came by every day to check up on him.

Naruto never could look her in the eyes. Mostly because she wore her neko mask even when checking up on her lover, but also because he wouldn't be able to handle the thought that they were separated because of him. Yugao had thanked him for saving his life at least, but it didn't make him feel any better because of it.

There was even a Random Encounter! that came along with the chance meeting with the dying man that specified if he'd save him, Naruto would get a merit called 'chameleon invisibility'.

Naruto failed it.

It was the first time since starting the game that he had felt so powerless and ineffective.

"You should stop coming here." Yugao said in a rare moment of verbal interaction.

"Huh?" Naruto asked. Does this mean she really _did_ blame him for not being able to save Hayate? Naruto's heart sunk into his body. He supposed he should have seen it coming. After all, if he had been a better medic, or practiced harder at the hospital, it might not have turned out so badly. Naruto hung his head in shame and shuffled out of his seat.

"It's not your fault." Yugao said.

Naruto looked up at her with a confused expression.

'It's not your fault." Yugao reiterated. "You shouldn't feel personally responsible for what happened to him. It's the guy who hurt Hayate that needs to be brought to justice, not the medic student with limited knowledge who didn't have the techniques to save him. So stop coming here, because you don't have a reason to be sorry."

Naruto knew somewhere in the back of his head that she was correct and that he should stop coming by to make sure someone of whom he hardly knew. He couldn't let go, though. It was difficult for him. The entire reason he got the medical ninjutsu merit was so he could save people, so he could not feel so helpless than before. Although he saved Hayate, it wasn't much a consolation to know that he would probably live the rest of his days as a vegetable.

Naruto's head still hung low. He shuffled out of the room and down the hallway.

He was going to beat this game, whatever that meant.

**AN/ a few things:**

**CISPA's back, again. I really feel like people just want to take over the internet for no good reason as of late. Either way, it's a caustic bill that shouldn't be implemented. Read up on your own. I don't need to tell you how bad this thing is because you probably already know. There isn't a petition against it yet, but keep a look out for one just in case. Thanks to RandyKaguyaofthewasteland for informing me of this.**

**I forgot to mention this last chapter, but Temairine has posted another story using my game mechanics as a guideline. This time it's Harry Potter, so if Game of Thrones isn't your cup of tea, why don't you check her new one out. Dreamless-Sleep777 has also expressed a desire to use my mechanics in a story, however he,she,it hasn't posted the first chapter yet. Keep your eyes open for when it does come out. Ne?**

**The next chapter will have more to do with the people around Naruto and the characters taking part in the exam. Woohoo, character development.**

**Please keep in mind that I am only one guy, one human guy, and as human guys tend to do, I err sometimes. You spot an error in the mechanics of the game, please spot it out. I don't bite, I promise.**

**Either way, have a gentlemanly day**


	16. a termination to the month of training

Chapter 16

With Naruto, day before the exam, morning.

Naruto looked around to take in his surroundings. The floors catering to the normal people who take classes not having to do with shinobi are similar in nature to the ones that do have things to do with shinobi. Shared tables instead of single desks. The floor being raised in the back and sloping downwards towards the front in order for the people in the back to get a good view of the blackboard regardless of who sits in front of them. Large windows to let in copious amounts of light.

Cosmetically, they're the same in every way. It's the occupants of the room that were different.

Naruto was seated around peoples of all ages, genders, creeds, hair-styles, and so on. Him being the youngest by a significant margin, however.

Everyone looked so serious, Naruto noted. They had their notebooks and textbooks cleanly laid out in front of them, they were staring straight ahead or writing idly in their books, and they weren't really… talking. It was discomforting to him.

"Hey kid."

Naruto was jolted from his musings and brought attention to a forty (or so) year old man. He was gruff, but had a kind voice.

Naruto reached for the back of his neck to rub nervously. "E-Eh, yeah?"

"I think you're in the wrong room. The shinobi hall is one floor down."

Naruto's brain stalled for a second. God, why was Naruto so scared at that moment? He could probably kill this man if he wanted to. He's a shinobi for god's sake. A person who's required and trained to keep his cool in strange and unfamiliar situations. Although this was… different. Naruto wasn't scared of this man so much as the situation that he represented. He didn't know what was going to happen. He forgot his notebook at home. He paid a lot of money to take this course, so he was going to try his hardest to succeed in it, but that didn't mean he enjoyed schoolwork at all because of that fact, and the teacher might be weird. Naruto wasn't scared per say, although it wouldn't be a stretch to say that he's more than a little fearful.

"T-This is Introduction to Business, right?" Naruto asked. For all he knew, he might be in the wrong room.

The man leveled a queer look at him. "Yeah, this is Intro to Business. Why are you here?"

"I… uh- I paid money to take this… course."

The man grunted himself in affirmation. "Okay, that explains how you're here, but _why_ are you here? You can't be older than 12."

"I'm 13." Naruto said indignantly. "And it's… a shinobi thing?" The statement turned into a question at the end against his will. He definitely did look like a shinobi despite his young looks now that he's started carrying around his new bo staff wherever he went and that he was wearing either the Inuzuka or the Mitarashi training clothes at all times. What can he say? He sunk a lot of funds into that bo staff and didn't want to see it unattended.

The man looked at Naruto for a moment before shrugging it off. "Okay."

Naruto's eyes widened marginally. Could he really be in any situation in front of a civilian and explain it away with the words 'It's a shinobi thing'? That's a really cool power. He didn't even have to spend a merit point on it.

The sliding door opened and any superfluous noise was cut out immediately. In walked a rather attractive young woman with flowing red hair. She had an impressive bust capable of being noticed even through her strange choice of attire. Despite her looks, she seemed very smart and capable beyond her years. An impressive feat considering her looks were really quite distracting.

"Okay class." She said. "I'm Ms. Maou. From now on until the end of the course, I'll be teaching you the introduction to business class. Any questions?" Her voice was kind, but demanding. The sort of tone of voice that one would look for in a prospective teacher.

A few of his inhibitions floated away at that moment. He didn't have any questions, but it was good to know that she would have answered them if he did.

00000000

With Anko, same day, late evening.

It wasn't exactly a 'let's all get drunk' party. No, even with advanced medical ninjutsu techniques, hangovers were still hangovers and Anko had a pretty big event to be sober for tomorrow. She had every sort of confidence that Naruto and Fu were going to take the championship. Anything else would be sabotage. They were just too powerful together. Yes, she had grown rather affectionate to the small green haired girl, so sue her. Anko didn't think she would, but Fu's adorable obliviousness of the human physicality was too endearing for her to weather.

Whatever, back to the moment at hand. There were a few jonin and chunin clustered around a small table. These jonin and chunin were comprised of Kakashi, Asuma, Kurenai, Anko, Hana, Izumo and Kotetsu, Ibiki, Genma, and Yugao. The last one was wearing her mask, seeing as she was supposed to be on the job at the moment. Considering the person she was assigned to look after hasn't even arrived at Konoha, she decided that a few drinks with friends could be useful to her stress levels. Although it was worrying that the Inuzuka and the Sabaku hadn't come to the village yet. The only thing she could attribute it to was road problems.

Even if shinobi didn't use roads.

Either way, they were all drinking and eating at the mostly shinobi only bar and having a generally good time. Even if a lot of them didn't really hang out that often, like Izumo and Kotetsu and Kakashi for example, it was a friendly atmosphere that Anko greatly enjoyed being the slightly extroverted person she was.

Practically everyone had trained with members of the chunin exams at one point or another and were trying to expound their theories as to why their personal basket cases would win without giving anything away. Although they were friendly with one another, to know the weaknesses of the opponents, it would be just irresponsible to not tell their own students about them.

They are ninja after all.

Anko took another long swig of her bottle before exhaling in relief. There were few things that could steel her nerves like a cold beer and kind company could. She might have ready access to the former, but the latter was slightly harder to come by. It was kind of difficult to gather groups of jonin and chunin seeing as they were often needed on long missions and were thusly almost incapable of getting into their parties like they were now. Good thing the chunin exams were tomorrow and the people who weren't on patrols were all going to be show up mandatorily.

Hana nudged Anko from the side. "Are you okay?" She asked in an almost joking tone. "Don't you have to see off yur favorite little blond tomorrow?" She was slurring her words slightly. Marking her as definitely intoxicated, but not to the extent that one would label her as 'drunk'. Just more susceptible to being called 'party happy'.

Anko slammed the glass down with a satisfying 'clunk'. "I am perfectly cognizant." This was said in a very fake British accent with a persnickety tone to it. "And I am horribly offended that you would ever think the opposhite."

Hana giggled a little bit with her slightly 'party happy' slur of hers. "Oh really?" She said is a bad British accent as well. "Well I must shay, if you are perfectly cognishant, I'm shure you won't have any trouble attaining coitush with that apprentish of yours." Hana said, giving Anko a not-so-subtle wink.

Anko's slight drinking blush darkened almost imperceptibly. She gave the girl sitting next to her a half-hearted slap to the shoulder for the notion that was brought to her attention.

Ever since they started quote on quote "living together", Hana had been endlessly harassing Anko about her less than socially acceptable interactions with Naruto. I mean, come on, sleeping in the same bed as him was kind of pushing the boundaries of what was cool and uncool to do. She was a decade his senior for god's sake. Well, then again, Hana knew that Anko wasn't really doing what she did as serious romantic gestures and signaling. More like teasing, it looked like to the Inuzuka.

Kurenai started giggling in the corner at what Asuma said like a little school girl. There was a heavy blush on her cheeks and she had a small case of the hiccups. Their relationship, Kurenai's and Asuma's, was always being redefined by the both of them. At times they want only seriousness, then they want alone time, then they want to see other people, then they practically estrange themselves from each other, then it all starts over again. For someone like Anko, who didn't have much experience in romantic relationships other than her larger than average knowledge in seduction, it was more than a little difficult to always maintain a side to be on when it came to their less than definable relationships. They often would come together one week and be apart another, so when Anko wasn't aware of the sudden paradigm shift, she could accidentally say something offensive that would normally be perfectly okay small talk conversation. She'd learned to just stop talking about Asuma with Kurenai.

Less confusing that way.

Either way, it looked like they were on a 'together' week, so after a few more minutes of very noticeable flirting, they led themselves away from the group and out the bar. Genma was trying to ask Yugao how Hayate's condition was, but she wasn't exactly that forthcoming with the information. Must still be a sensitive subject with her.

At some point in the evening, another ANBU agent arrived and told her that the chunin candidate she was supposed to look over had arrived. Yugao left, but not before getting tailed by Hana, who wanted to see her brother and tease him a little bit.

Ibiki, being the less than sociable shinobi he was, left as well. The funny thing was, nobody actually saw him do it. At one point he was there, then he wasn't. No poof of smoke, no leaves whisking themselves through the door to hide his presence, nothing. At some point, someone just noted how he wasn't there anymore and that was that.

This saddened Anko a little. It had taken quite a bit of convincing to get him to come by and socialize a bit. In the end, it was probably just his nature to leave anyway. He might be a loud, commanding, and intimidating individual, but he just couldn't make small talk to save his life.

These events led to Izumo, Kotetsu, Genma to start chatting excitedly about the chunin exams and Kakashi and Anko to their own devices. Namely, Kakashi pulling out his porn and Anko pulling out a bio of all the participants of the next examinations. She'd read it multiple times already, but with no one to talk to, she guessed that her only option was to read as well.

Eventually, Kakashi looked up at Anko and said. "So how's my adorable little genin doing?" in his normal aloof tone.

She gave him a kinda tired look. They were actually on pretty good terms most of the time, but Anko still wouldn't let it go how he stood her up on that date she asked him out on. If he didn't want to start something, he should have just said so. "If you're thinking about getting a leg up on the exams," Anko replied in a friendlily chiding tone. "Then you can forget it."

Kakashi stretched his arms out above his head. "Mah, mah. Do you really think I would get that information by asking for it?" He said tiredly. "I'm asking _how_ he's been doing, not what."

Anko took another swig from her bottle. "You know, you're shtill his sensei. You could just ask him."

Kakashi waved her off. "Oh come on Anko, don't be like that. I just got here this afternoon. The least you could tell me is how my student's been since I've left."

Anko leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. "He's been good. Got a girlfriend or two I guess.

Kakashi's lone eyebrow rose in surprise. "Since when did he get girlfriends?"

Anko shrugged. "I dunno. He doesn't really ask me for advice about it anymore and isn't forthcoming with information either."

"Can't you just interrogate him for the information? There are non-painful ways to get information, after all."

Anko gave him a slightly cross look. "I would. If I gave a rat's ash that is." After saying this, she took another swig of her bottle.

"So you _aren't_ plotting to fuck him?" Kakashi asked with a completely flat tone of voice.

Anko began choking on the alcohol in her throat. Once it was sufficiently cleared, and had all the attention from the other three people, she sent a glare at his direction. "Is there-"she paused to clear her throat a little bit before continuing "Something wrong with your head?"

"Yes, but that's not the point."

"Woah, woah, wait." Genma said, cutting in their conversation. "What's going on?"

"He." Anko said, pointing a finger at the pervert in question. "Thinks I'm having sex with my student."

Genma, Izumo, and Kotetsu all shared a look. "You mean…" Genma started out a little trepidatiously. "You… aren't?"

Anko gave them all a shocked look. "No. No, I'm not having shex with a 13 year old. Why did you all think that?"

"Well…" Izumo said. "You are always talking about him."

"And…" Kotetsu added. "You have pretty similar childhoods."

"Childhoods?" Anko asked. "Our childhoods are nothing alike! And what does that have to do with me fucking him? Which, might I add, I'm not."

Genma held up his hands in front of him. "Listen, Anko. You-" He looked around the bar a bit to make sure no one was eavesdropping on their conversation before continuing. "Well, you know about his condition. And you know how people treated you when they rescued you from Orochimaru. The two of you are really the only ones in Konoha who have a little empathy towards the others situations. We just kind of assumed…"

"Wait." Anko butted in. "Who do you mean by _we_?"

Another look was shared between the three. "You're more than a little crazy." Kotetsu said. "But we all know that you wouldn't be crazy enough to force yourself on a 13 year old." Jonin level ninja or not, cases such as forced pedophilia or sex crimes were worth life time in jail or even execution in some cases. However, cases that involved shinobi were often looked at with a bit of a closer magnification. Meaning that some cases might be dismissed so long as they could put forward enough proof of consent and/or love on both sides. "So, when Hana said that you two were sleeping together, the jonin thought that you two." He paused to figure out how to phrase the next statement correctly. "Found each other."

Anko leaned back to let the words he just spoke sink in. The Mitarashi might be a little buzzed and she might be slurring her words a bit, but she wasn't out of it. Although she was greatly disgruntled at how the jonin thought of her, in a deep part of herself, she also knew that on the outside looking in, there was some merit to what they said. The lonely Jinchuuriki approached the lonely special jonin for training. She taught him what she knew, most notably the art of seduction. A few weeks ago, he started dressing in clothing similar to what she wore. Whenever they were together, they were stuck in playful banter.

Bottom line is, to the outside world, they were happy with each other.

It was a weird relationship by any terms. One that many would look at in disgust, but the people who knew Anko's and Naruto's situations were a little bit more sympathetic.

Anko ran a hand through her hair. "We are sleeping together." She clarified. "But." She said before they could talk. "That'sh all we're doing. Sleeping in the same bed. No Shex."

Kakashi looked at the three in a little bit of confusion. "I was just teasing her. Is that really a thing that's happening? Everyone thinks she's fucking him?"

Genma did a slightly exaggerated shrug. "Apparently she isn't. But you have to admit, that is pretty weird."

"Exactly." Anko said. "There's no way I'd start something with a 13 year old."

Genma gave her an exasperated look. "I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about how you're sleeping in the same bed as he is. What's that about?"

Anko pinched the bridge of her nose. "So you're telling me, that sleeping in the same bed as he, ish weirder than me starting a relationship with him?"

"Don't give me that." Genma said. "You don't have to look very far to know that the bond between master and apprentice is pretty intimate. Just look at Hayate and Yugao. If you two are sharing the same bed, and you don't need to be sharing the same bed, then there's something you aren't telling each other."

Anko got up abruptly from seat. "I don't know about that. All I know is that I need to have a chat with a certain bitch."

Just as she was about to turn and leave, Mighto Gai burst through the door, covered in sweat and grime in his green gloriousness. "Am I late?" He huffed and puffed out.

"Yo, Gai." Kakashi said, giving him a small wave. "Yeah, you're a little late."

Gai doubled over and propped himself up on his upper thighs. There, he began to breathe a bit more to put his heart under control. "When I ran into Asuma and Kurenai on the way here, I thought there'd still be time."

"The night's still young." Kakashi said before ordering another round of drinks.

Anko shrugged and walked out.

It would be after precisely twenty minutes of conversation between friends and a few more rounds of drinks that Gai would remember something of vital importance.

He somewhat clumsily slammed his hand on the table and a sealing array spread out along the entirety of it. A huge tortoise spawned on top of it in a puff of smoke and knocked aside glasses and other assorted drinks.

A blonde girl rolled off the top of it and hit the ground with a meaty sounding 'thud'. She groaned a little bit and slowly got up to survey her surroundings. After getting a good idea of her surroundings, she muttered something to herself. Something that was heard and agreed with silently within the silent room.

"Fucking leaf nin." Was all Samui said and all she had to say.

00000000

With Tenten, same day, afternoon.

Tenten was, in a word, content. Content with how her life was turning out that is.

She prided herself in being a weapons expert. Well, expert might be a bit much considering she had only been studying for about a year or so specifically with weapons, but she definitely had a knack for it and was more than capable with using them.

The month long excursion to wind had been a learning experience for her, namely in the chakra department. There were things like poisons and toxins that were up for learning, but she forsook them in favor of chakra elemental manipulation.

As it turns out, she was a wind type user, meaning she could coat the blades she used in a fine wind chakra sheen to make them even more sharp and dangerous as well as extending her range with them. Of course even after a month of hard training, she still wasn't particularly good with it. That didn't really matter, though, because it already had a discernable effect on her weapons' piercing ability.

A very discernable effect in her humble opinion.

Also leading to her contentment in life would be her newfound boyfriend, in the form of Naruto, of whom had just accepted her courtship after their latest date in Konoha.

So yeah, she was happy and had every right to be.

This happiness was evident on her face, something her father picked up on when she came back from said date. He had been manning the cash register and helping others with affairs relating to pointy or blunt objects to be used with lethal force against nefarious wrongdoers. The day had been rather quick and trying for the single Higurashi father to get all the customers that came in happy with their various states of steel and wood, although it trickled to a crawl by the time the afternoon.

Tenten was on her way up to the residential part of their residence when her father blocked her path to the hallway. He was an imposing man and always looked at everything with a gruff attitude, but Tenten knew that deep inside, he was as harmless as a teddy bear when push came to shove. Either way, this show of force somewhat put Tenten off her game, even if it didn't put a dent in her disposition.

Tenten looked at either sides of him. There was no way she was going to get past him seeing as his shoulders were broad enough that they were almost touching either sides of the doorway. "Hey daddy, is something up?" She asked slowly, not sure if she'd done anything to warrant such action.

He merely quirked an eyebrow at her statement. "You're happier than usual, what happened?" Although this was meant to be a show of genuine concern for his daughter's wellbeing and happiness, it came off as rather nosy and indiscrete. Something that Tenten slightly balked at.

She put her hands on her hips and quirked a brow as well. "Why do you care?" She asked brusquely and promptly tried to shove her way past the hallway, mood being warped under her father's gaze.

He still blocked her path. "Tenten…" He said slowly. "I'm sorry that I'm… how you say, abrupt. You have to know that I love you and that you can tell me anything. Now come on, why're you so happy? I want to know."

Tenten at first gave her father a confused look, which quickly turned into one of understanding. He missed her from her month away and was looking for some father-daughter time. She knew that her father wasn't very good with portraying his emotions accurately, so when a new situation arose that she was unfamiliar with, she reacted with apprehension.

The Higurashi junior gave her father a light smile. "Well, if you want to know…" She said in a cutesy tone, good mood restored for now. "I just got a boyfriend."

The Higurashi senior's thick eyebrows went up to his hairline he was so surprised at this information. Now he wasn't an overprotective father by any means, but he also didn't know of anyone in her class that she was particularly fond of. At least no males by any definition. "W-Who is it?" He asked with a slight stutter, something very uncharacteristic of him.

Her eyes went half-lidded and she looked up at him with unbelieving eyes. Was he really so unobservant? "Naruto." She said, clearing up his confusion.

Higurashi's eyebrows went back down to their usual state. "Oh, Naruto. Didn't think you liked him."

Tenten nodded appraisingly. "Well, I do. Can I get past?"

Mr. Higurashi complied. Just she was about to hit the stairs, though, he said one last thing. "You know, there's this saying. It goes 'You don't shit where you eat'."

Tenten paused and looked at her dad with a befuddled expression. "What does that mean?"

"It means that you don't work with people you like. Naruto still comes by here regularly, so if something were to happen between you two…"

Tenten rolled her eyes and walked up the stairs to her room. "Everything's going to be fine, dad." She said offhandedly.

Mr. Higurashi shrugged and went back to the cash register. He really needed to go back to the throwing range with her sometime and reconnect. His daughter seemed to be drifting away and he didn't like it at all.

And as far as her dating Naruto goes…

There could have been worse matches.

Like ones with alarmingly large eyebrows.

Or cold, white eyes.

Yeah, there could have been much worse matches.

00000000

With Shikamaru, same day, noonish

As of late, Shikamaru had been out of his comfort zone very frequently.

When he just wanted to lay back and watch the clouds roll by, his irascible redheaded partner would interrupt it for some trivial reason like training, or entertainment, or to feed her sadistic tendencies.

Okay, so she didn't have any sadistic tendencies, but she was a hothead. Needless to say, he didn't work well with hotheads.

Then there was the walkthrough guide that he was looking through for Naruto. He did have to say, there was an absolute shit-ton of material that went into the game. It made him wonder who had the time to make something so… complex. Well, this Tobi Guruguru guy predominantly.

Every time he read into it, it made him more and more unsettled. This wasn't a game; it was reality. Suddenly being able to lift more weights or act quicker or have better form with the sword with a single tap of the button was very strange and weird to him. His rational thinking wouldn't let him think it didn't come without consequences. There was just no way that something so fortuitous couldn't come with some drawbacks.

Well whatever the case was, Naruto rarely listened to his council when it came to that particular subject. He even bought a few more properties if memory served, which it always did. Shikamaru _did_ eventually look into the stock exchange at Naruto's behest and had been getting him a lot of money, so what did he expect? For Naruto to not build his empire? No, that kid was going mad with trying his hand at being a business tycoon.

It was actually kind of fun for him, the stock exhange. There was risk, reward, thought, looking into the various companies to see any weakness or points for building, investing, losing, winning, and randomness. It was really the randomness that kept him coming back for more. Unlike chess, which was calculation upon calculation, the stock exchange could plummet in company values based on the action of one bigoted CEO, or a careless comment from a top executive. So he had to appraise not only the company's worth, but the people at the top to make sure they knew what they were doing, else suffer the wrath of the populous. Strategizing, careful moving, anticipation. It was like chess in the real world and he genuinely liked it. Which was weird because he didn't like many things that took up energy.

Naruto always tried to pay him back for it, but Shikamaru refused every time.

He was content with his status as a well-off genin from a prominent clan. It didn't matter if he had the money to buy a powerboat if he didn't have the want to get in it.

Shikamaru sat up from his bed. There was pretty loud snoring coming from the room over. Usually, he'd be able to sleep through damn near anything. Karui's snoring was just one of the exceptions.

She was taking a nap. A well-deserved nap in her opinion seeing as she spent the majority of the day before in her kata stances and sparring with Shikamaru and Shikaku.

They didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things that was for sure. That being said, anybody could see how the deciding factor in these engagements would be how well one could work with their partner. As it was, they eventually got a pretty decent synergy going on. It was hard though, seeing as their fighting styles were so different in nature.

Shikamaru sighed and cracked open the walkthrough once more and started perusing the miscellaneous skills again. From what he saw in Naruto's own guidebook, there were either a lot that had to be unlocked for him, or others that might be locked away forever from his reach.

As far as he knew there were general skills that anybody had the ability to learn and accomplish, like singing or tailoring. However, he had to unlock skills like computer programming (a skill that he'd have to look into himself, as reading the description interested him a bit), because it was such a specialized ability and required a special frame of mind to understand on a basic level.

Or at least that was how he rationalized it.

As it was, he was about halfway through the guide. Honestly, it was just so absurdly verbose and yet extremely vague in every way. Not only that, but some sections were in strange fonts or entirely capitalized. It was like whoever made it (and someone had to make it because this couldn't be an act of God or something (if it were, it wouldn't be so goddamn confusing (or it just wouldn't explain itself like it was trying to do in the walkthrough he was holding onto))), made it for the sole purpose of making it hard to read, which confuddled the Nara to no end. If no one was to read it, then why make it in the first place?

At this point, Shikamaru felt like he was a detective finding clues to a mystery that he didn't want to solve in the slightest. Not that he wanted to continue with this whole confusing ordeal, but just because his laziness was preventing the passion required to solve such weird cases. Either way, all the evidence that made itself apparent made absolutely no sense whatsoever to him.

It'd come together though.

It always did in the books.

Then again, it wasn't like he read all that much.

00000000

With Hana, same day, late morning.

Her month had gotten more interesting. If there were things that were sure of in this world, that one statement would be up as some of the more true.

Ever since they met, Naruto had been sending in a shadow clone or two every day to help out with her duties as veterinarian. With that help, she was finally able to fire that worthless assistant who was always skipping his shift.

It took a little bit for him to learn the ropes. After all, his duties included cleaning up after the animals, getting the animals the right food for their species and sub-species along with the getting the food portions right, manning the register and appointment books, and last but not least, keeping the animals company.

It was kind of funny actually. Every single animal species in the world seemed to love him, all except for cats. They _hated_ him. scratches, bites, even a strategically aimed piss stream was thrown his way. Nope, cats did not like him in the slightest and he didn't like them back. It was a good thing that Hana was at least accepted by them, else they might have to eliminate a sizeable portion of the customer base.

That's all well and good, but it didn't really explain how her month had been getting interesting as of late. To answer that self-imposed question simplistically, Naruto and her had been getting along famously with one another. And when someone gets along famously with one Naruto Uzumaki, their life is going to change, usually for the better.

Hana had an unusually kind and docile temperament for an Inuzuka. That's actually part of the reason why she chose to get her medic, and later her veterinary, license. Helping people was the most that she wanted to accomplish.

Although if anybody hurt her family, she'd probably go apeshit like any other Inuzuka on the compounds.

"AAHH!" a scream was heard in the backroom where all the animals were being taken care of. Hana sighed and placed down the magazine she'd been reading to go and check up on the Uzumaki.

She found him trying his damndest to pry off a lynx from his arm to no avail. Even when he hung it from the teeth currently lodged into his arm, the animal would rather hang limply than let go. Whatever you have to say about felines, when they get riled up, they get riled the fuck up.

Hana smiled a little at the situation in front of her. Situations such as these were beginning to become increasingly common in the veterinary clinic. Naruto looked at her pleadingly as she was the only one he could turn to for help without the risk of amputation.

The Inuzuka walked over and pinched the point where jaw met skull on the lynx. Instinctively, it opened its mouth to let Naruto retreat into the corner to treat his wounds. To get dispelled, shadow clones would normally have to get a solid punch or otherwise harming impact on their body. The bite didn't seem to meet that criteria, which both Naruto and Hana were thankful for.

After using a little bit of medical chakra on his arm, he glared at Kashikoi, who had watched the entire thing take place with a little fox smirk on her face. "You could have helped." Naruto said helplessly at the smirking fox.

He swore to god, that day he saw a fox laugh.

"Don't you ever learn?" Hana asked chidingly, placing the lynx back into its cage and refilling its food container, which Naruto was supposed to do before getting attacked by the medium sized feline.

Naruto rubbed at the phantom pain of where the bite mark used to be. "It looked asleep. I swear to god they're plotting to kill me." He looked up helplessly at Hana. "Why do cats hate me so much?"

Hana sent another smile his way and shrugged. "Beats me. Maybe a few more of your genes got mutated?"

Naruto looked downwards and to the side a little. "Maybe…" He said unsurely. It didn't feel too good to lie to his newfound family, he quickly found out. But it wasn't like he could come clean at the moment either.

It was kind of hard to describe the feelings he had with the Inuzukas at the moment. They did accept him as their kin, but he also felt like he was taking advantage of them. It wasn't like he actually was an Inuzuka or even had the slightest blood for it. He was just using the ability given to him to get the Honorary Inuzuka status.

Then again, there weren't many options that were presented him when he took up that ability. What could he do, not accept their proposition? Even someone with as little knowledge in social etiquette as Naruto knew that turning down such a proposition would be really insulting to the entire clan.

Whatever the case might be, Tsume was treating him like a kind of… half-son. He wasn't hers, but he was under her care and she was trying to make him feel comfortable. It wasn't hard for her though. Naruto would admittedly feel comfortable in almost any family setting, especially one like the Inuzuka's. Hana had been more or less treating him like a friend of Kiba's, although as the weeks wore on, she warmed up to him a bit more. Even going so far as to train him personally in clan techniques with Kashikoi.

She didn't know many that were applicable to foxes, but that didn't stop her from sharing all her theoretical knowledge with him and sparring with her own companions to get him trained in those techniques.

Naruto placed his hands on his hips and belted out a big sigh. "I can't let this get to my mood." He said mostly to himself.

One of Hana's eyebrows rose in a mischievous manner. "Oh? Is there something going on? Something you want to tell Onee-chan?" Honestly, it seemed like every slightly older female in his life wanted to tease the living crap out of him. Not even Anko's very… physical teasing could place up to Hana's own ability to make him feel embarrassed. It might be that he was getting used to Anko's strange displays of inappropriate touching, or it might just be that Hana was the devil incarnate. Either way, he was getting teased from both fronts.

That wasn't going to get him down though! He was Naruto-godforsaken-Uzumaki and letting Hana get to him would be letting her win. What she was winning, he had no idea, all he knew was that he didn't want her to.

He placed his hands behind his head and looked up to the ceiling with a wistful expression on his face. "Well, me and Tenten are meeting up later today. She said she had something important to tell me."

Hana's smile grew marginally wider. She made a soft little 'cooing' noise and brought her hands up to support her head, which went to the side a little. Her eyes were also weirdly sparkly at the moment.

Naruto backed away a little bit out of concern. "What?" He asked with a straight a face he could conjure.

Hana's excited face didn't lower in intensity in the slightest. "That means she wants to be your girlfriend."

Naruto's face went slack. He looked at her with tired, half-lidded eyes. "Ya think?" He asked sarcastically.

Hana's face went back to normal. Whenever she brought up his strange three-way romance-thing between Tenten, Fu, and Anko, it'd be flustered central for Naruto. He didn't seem to be getting that way though. "You know?" She asked.

"Well… yeah." He'd been getting pretty good at reading what people, especially women, were thinking after Anko's tutelage in seduction. That little lesson was proving to be more and more useful lately, and he wasn't even seducing anyone. After getting over the fact that girls might actually see him as attractive and a potential partner in romance, he'd been examining the actions of the women around him with a bit of a closer eye. "I mean, I like her, and she likes me. So… yeah, I kinda guessed that was what she was going to say."

"Uh-huh. And what about your other… friend? What does Fu think of this?"

Naruto shrugged. "I dunno. I think she just wants to be friends."

"Do you know this for fact?"

Naruto's silence was all the answer she needed.

"Listen, Naruto. I know it might be uncomfortable, but you _have_ to talk to her about this. As a generalization, women aren't as forthcoming with their feelings and thoughts as men are. Even I'm able to come to terms with this. She might not be on the same page as you are when it comes to your relationship."

Naruto sighed again and began pacing around with no destination in mind with his fox securely on his shoulder. "I got it, I got it. I'll talk to her tonight."

Hana smiled at the Uzumaki walking out the backroom. He was a nice kid, she concluded.

Nice, but a little stupid.

00000000

With Tsume, same day, early afternoon

The room that she was currently walking into was dank, dreary, and had one of the most serious attitudes she's ever seen. By her side were three unknowns wearing the same uniform and crouched down in a subordinate pose. Their faces were hidden by white masks.

In front of her was a man sitting at a desk. He was writing something with a concentrated face using a brush and ink. Tsume looked around the room. It had strange quotes and adages on some of the walls, but other than that, it just looked like any other eastern style room with a dank atmosphere. One of the man's arms was held in a sling and half his face was covered in bandages. The other half could be seen as weathered and battle-torn. His expression was calm and composed. Like he wasn't sitting in front of one of the most powerful people in Konohagakure.

"Danzo." Tsume greeted amiably enough, holding back her contempt for a later date. "To what do I owe this pleasure of meeting you?"

Danzo was silent for a few seconds longer than what Tsume would have deemed appropriate, writing in that scroll of his. When he finally spoke, he said only a few words. "Naruto Uzumaki."

Tsume's face hardened. "What about him?"

"Tell me." He paused to look up at her directly. "What you know about him."

Tsume glanced at the three at the side, something that Danzo noticed.

"You don't have to worry about them." He said in reassurance.

Tsume brought her attention back to the cripple behind the desk. "His Name is Naruto Uzumaki. He has the clan name of Uzumaki, but doesn't seem to have any of their cosmetic traits. I'm guessing it was just a name that was given to him at the orphanage. He is currently the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi. He's a genin. He's apprenticed to Anko Mitarashi. He's a part of Team 7. He's a friendly, if mischievous little kid. Both I and my daughter have taken a shining to him and from what Kiba's told me, he's also on good terms with him as well. He has blond hair and blue eyes with whisker-like birthmarks on his cheeks, probably a side-effect of the Kyuubi inhabiting his system." Tsume said all of this without breaking composure. Danzo was one of the most powerful political elements residing in Konoha, so pissing him off wouldn't bode well for anyone.

After a few seconds of silence, Danzo made a motion with his hand, as if waiting for more information to flow forth. When none came, his gaze hardened and he almost glared at the matriarch. "Is that all?"

"All that I want to share." Tsume said evenly, eyes narrowing imperceptibly. She didn't like this man in the slightest. The concept of disposable personnel was something the leader of a clan that favored the concept of kinmanship found irredeemably contemptible.

Danzo sighed in disappointment. "If you don't want to go forward, then I guess that I'm forced to. Naruto Uzumaki, Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, Honorary member of the Inuzuka clan, holder of the Inuzuka clan's advanced sensory organs. That's all the relevant information about this boy. Or at least all that I'm willing to share with _you_."

Tsume tapped her foot impatiently. "Danzo, what's this meeting about?" She asked brusquely.

Danzo straightened his desk up a little before returning his hard look back at the matriarch. "You know what this meeting's about. Naruto Uzumaki suddenly gained your clan's attributes without any sort of forewarning or cause. You yourself are looking into the reasons behind this with your advanced knowledge in genetic theory and practice."

"That wasn't a question." Tsume said, getting slightly irritated.

Danzo interlaced his fingers together. "Oh, I believe it was. What have you found that may or may not explain the phenomena of Naruto's sensory organs suddenly mutating?"

Tsume shrugged.

If it wouldn't have betrayed his character, Danzo would have placed his head within his hands and sighed audibly. Instead, his gaze hardened even more and his voice turned steely. "If you would." He said through gritted teeth. "Explain to me what you mean."

"It means that I don't know what happened to make him that way. Chakra doesn't suddenly mutate like that nor does DNA."

"Is there any possibility of the Kyuubi's chakra affecting him on the chakra and genetic level?"

"I've… never heard of any sort of chakra inherently changing the chakra of any other. If that would be even theoretically possible, his entire chakra system would have to be bathed in the Kyuubi's chakra, which would kill him. Even then, to specifically change only his sensory organs would have been impossible if he survived the process."

"Are you certain that this is the real Naruto? Not some spy sent by another nation? Or a sleeper agent?"

"He might be. I never really knew the kid before he got on Kiba's radar. Although you'd have to be a special kind of fucking retarded to send someone who had a very visible bloodline attribute in place of someone who didn't. Now, are we done here?" Tsume asked, slightly irritated at this whole meeting.

Danzo waved his hand and the matriarch suddenly had two ninja by her side. "You may leave." He said offhandedly.

Once she was away, he addressed the three other ninja in the room. "Bat, Owl, Rat. Your new assignment is to look after Naruto's every movement. When he sleeps, when he trains, when he eats ramen, you are going to make sure no second is undocumented. If there's ever a time when something suspicious is happening, make a report to me."

They all nodded and disappeared to do their own tasks.

When Danzo heard of the situation, he'd been content with letting Konoha's best genealogist to take the reins in finding out how someone could suddenly mutate a bloodline attribute. If such a process could be duplicated without the need for it to be placed there through the usual way of egg and sperm fertilization, he'd be capable of raising an army full of people who had specialized or even extinct kekai genkai.

Now that he knew even she didn't have the slightest idea, he was going to take control of the situation.

If there was even the slightest warning of Naruto suddenly obtaining more bloodlines, he'd be there to find out how.

**AN/ so how'd you like it?**

**Good?**

**Bad?**

**Ugly?**

**The tournament is happening next chapter. Who wants to guess what Orochimaru is going to do? I tried to get to all the people important to Naruto. (Left Fu out for a reason though, so don't worry)**

**Either way, read, review, have a gentlemanly day.**

**You know, all the good things in life.**


	17. a man of wealth and taste

Chapter 17

_Quest: Defeat Omoi in the third round_

_Rewards: +10 kenjutsu form, +1 Wisdom_

_Quest: Defeat Samui in the third round_

_Rewards: +10 kenjutsu form, +1 Intelligence_

_Quest: Defeat Karui in the third round_

_Rewards: +10 kenjutsu form, +1 Strength_

_Quest: Defeat Shikamaru in the third round_

_Rewards: Unlock Shadow Manipulation Merit, +5 Wisdom_

_Quest: Defeat Sakura in the third round_

_Rewards: +3 Intelligence, +3 Wisdom_

_Quest: Defeat Ino in the third round_

_Rewards: +20 gardening, Unlocks Mind jutsu_

_Quest: Defeat Kiba in the third round_

_Rewards: +10 ninken partner ability, +2 strength_

_Quest: Defeat Sasuke in the third round_

_Rewards: +10 Lightning elemental jutsu, +1 Agility_

_Quest: Defeat Tenten in the third round_

_Rewards: +30 Kenjutsu variety_

_Quest: Defeat Lee in the third round_

_Rewards: +30 Taijutsu form_

_Quest: Defeat Temari in the third round_

_Rewards: Unlocks fanjutsu, +10 Wind elemental jutsu, basic fan club_

_Quest: Defeat Kankuro in the third round_

_Rewards: +10 puppet jutsu Mechanical Genius_

_Quest: Defeat Gaara in the third round_

_Rewards: +20 Jinchuuriki jutsu control, +20 Jinchuuriki jutsu shape manipulation_

_Quest: Defeat Kurotsuchi in the third round_

_Rewards: +10 kenjutsu, +10 Earth elemental jutsu, Unlocks the lava release merit_

_Quest: Defeat Takkana in the third round_

_Rewards: +10 poison identification and synchronization, +10 medicine identification and synchronization._

_Quest: Defeat Fujitsu in the third round_

_Rewards: +3 Intelligence, +3 Wisdom_

_Quest: Defeat Fu in the third round_

_Rewards: +20 Jinchuuriki jutsu control, +20 Jinchuuriki jutsu shape manipulation_

_Quest: Defeat Neji in the third round_

_Rewards: +20 Taijutsu form, Unlock the Gentle Fist merit_

_Quest: Defeat Hinata in the third round_

_Rewards: +20 Taijutsu form, Unlock the Gentle Fist merit_

Naruto didn't really know what to make of the new slew of quests in his pamphlet. The tournament was structured in a way that he'd definitely not fight a large majority of the people in question, yet there were still quests for them. Not only that, but there was the option for defeating Fu too.

"AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGG!" Naruto looked up for a little bit to see Fujitsu reeling back from a sudden and very painful stab to his right shoulder. The Uzumaki winced a little bit. He and Tenten were in the ring and fighting Kurotsuchi and Sasuke. Truthfully, he didn't know who was going to win. Sasuke was strong when he left, never mind what kind of training he went through to get better. Kurotsuchi, however, was a card he didn't know too much about. He did know one thing though, that she was a lava release user and was very proficient in it.

Fujitsu and Tenten were good, but Naruto just didn't know if they were up to the task of battling the two prodigious shinobi. Then again, throughout the fight, Kurotsuchi and Sasuke had been fighting in their own little worlds while Tenten and Fujitsu made remarkable synchronous plays. Seems that Fujitsu was really good at making plans and maneuvers after all. Not that any of them really helped him from getting stabbed in the shoulder from a sudden earth spike that emerged from the ground.

Fujitsu took a shaky hold of a kunai and used it to break the earth spike from his shoulder and reel away. Sasuke was up his ass in the second it took him take control of the situation, throwing punches, kicks, and headbutts at the Taki shinobi ceaselessly while Kurotsuchi held Tenten away from the fight.

The entire beginning of the fight had been all of them running around, taking potshots at each other. Not exactly exciting, but it turned out that Tenten had been secretly placing exploding bombs at strategic points around the area while Kurotsuchi had been blasting out her quicklime powder all across the field.

The middle of the fight had been when Tenten detonated the bombs and Kurotsuchi used the quicklime on the ground to create instant cement to attack and defend. The crowd 'oooh'ed and 'aaahhh'ed at the spectacle created for them. Their fighting styles definitely meshed to make a 'showy' type shinobi battle, but it was winding down with all four of them having exhausted more chakra than they would have liked and the hidden stores of explosives and quicklime all but used up.

A very chakra saturated windmill shuriken flew through the air and nearly bisected the Iwa genin. Luckily, she was limber enough to pull a 'Matrix' type move to bend under it. It closer than she would have liked though, evidenced by the hair lazily floating to the ground which had been cut off from the chakra outlining the shuriken.

Kurotsuchi growled and pushed herself up to run at Tenten with her katana cocked. Tenten unrolled her scroll and brought out a hand sickle with a ball and chain attached to the bottom of it. Meanwhile, Fujitsu just managed to evade one of Sasuke's strikes and substitutioned with Tenten.

Fujitsu ran at Kurotsuchi with a kunai while Tenten ran at Sasuke with her own weapon. Classic bait and switch. From the way it looked, it had to have been planned out ahead of time.

Naruto was definitely impressed. Fujitsu was looking to be a more able competitor than he originally appeared to be when he first met the bespectacled Taki genin.

From his fighting with Kurotsuchi, it was evident that he got training in the sharper arts from Tenten, being able to hold his own against an experienced kenjutsu fighter with a hurt limb. Even if that was running around in circles and blocking or parrying strikes instead of outright attacking.

It was evident even to the non-shinobi in the crowds that Fujitsu was the weaker fighter and was merely stalling for time in the hopes that Tenten'd be able to conclude her fight with Sasuke and return to help him.

Sasuke, the man in question, was dueling Tenten with two kunai in his hands and trying his best to come at her at close range with the two blades. Naruto held onto the railing holding him from the ring and grit his teeth together. It was tense seeing his girlfriend get almost severely injured. Naruto had faith in her abilities, but there was a line between faith and delusion; Naruto felt he walked that line every day.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Naruto didn't have to be psychic to know that it was Fu who did that. He calmed his breathing a little bit and gave her a knowing look. Even if Sasuke did beat her, Naruto didn't think he'd be a big enough dick to go out of his way to hurt her.

Just as he was thinking that, Tenten managed to get her chain wrapped around his arm and pulled with all the force she had in her spry body. The strength difference between the two was not large, but she had the element of surprise on her hand and Sasuke had the reflexes of an Uchiha on his.

He sprang towards her just has she pulled, unbalancing her slightly. Sasuke took this opening and thrust forward his first kunai, which was jounced away with her chain, only to use that as leverage to throw a second thrust to her neck.

He stopped short of actually killing her, the tip of the blade only barely going into the skin enough to draw blood, but it was enough to show her how serious he was.

Tenten spluttered a little bit, not being able to draw air in properly because of the steel to her neck and dropped her sickle and chain. They thudded to the floor just as she rose her hands up in submission.

Genma, who had taken over for Hayate, dropped into the stadium and called the match. Fujitsu fell to the ground and clutched at his wounded shoulder, too tired to properly stand up and go get medical attention himself.

A few experienced medics came by and picked him up on a stretcher. Tenten briefly tried to walk with him, but was shooed away with the knowledge that he'd be perfectly fine.

She didn't look like she liked it, but acquiesced anyway, making her way back up the competitors' viewing area.

When she got up to the rest of everyone else, Naruto was the first to meet her with a concerned countenance. "Are you okay? Should you go over to the medics-"

Tenten cut him off with a raised hand. She gave him a light, somewhat tired smile. "I'm fine." She said. "Just a bit tired."

Naruto looked at her dubiously. His hands lit up with green chakra and he caressed her neck without her asking. "You need to conserve your energy." She said, not doing much to stop him. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. He was what some people would call 'stubborn'.

"Don't care. You're hurt. I'm helping." Naruto said in authoritarian, clipped tones. It looked kind of funny, considering he was still a few inches shorter than her, combined with the fact that his 'serious' face was completely adorable.

Genma cleared his throat and announced the next match. "The second match!" He shouted using a special jutsu to amplify his voice. "Will be between the teams of Naruto Uzumaki and Fu, and Samui and Lee! Will the four in question please come down to the staging area."

Samui chose to take the stairs while Lee excitedly jumped over the railing and ran all the way to the center. Samui, despite the urges of Lee, chose to keep a slow, calm pace. Naruto looked at Fu, who nodded, not saying a word.

"We're going to be fine." Naruto said.

"We're going to be fine." Fu said.

Tenten grabbed his shoulder, diverting his attention to the girlfriend in question. "If you win." She said in a cutesy tone of voice. "You can expect a prize~, so you'd better win." Having said that, she walked backwards and took a seat at one of the chairs in the box.

Naruto grinned and looked at Fu. "Well, looks like we're going to have to win." Kashikoi jumped out of his Inuzuka training outfit's coat pocket and yipped in excitement.

Naruto and Fu vaulted over the viewing stage and came face to face with their competitors. Lee looked as pumped up as humanly possible and Samui, even if she had the mask of calm cold ruthlessness, seemed at the very least warm-blooded and ready for a fight.

"Naruto-kun!" Lee shouted in exuberance. "I look forward to a clean, fun match." He held out his closed fist for a bumping. Naruto gave the excited genin a big, toothy grin before reciprocating the gesture of friendship.

Fu's and Samui's eyes crossed paths. Nothing was said between them because nothing had to be said between them. Fu gave Samui a slight nod, which was returned with about as much friendliness as Fu gave.

"Are the four of you ready?" Genma asked in a quieter tone.

Naruto gave him a thumbs up while Lee shouted out a "YOSH!"

"Then!" Genma said, using his louder voice to amplify his voice to the crowds. "Begin!"

00000000

Orochimaru looked down at the ring with barely contained excitement. To see how his new body was going to perform was nice and all, but he was having reservations as to who he should have nabbed as a new body. The sharingan might be a powerhouse capable of so many overpowered abilities, but those could be circumvented by a lot of means. This Uzumaki kid didn't waste time.

It seemed that both he and his partner were well aware that the Kumo nin could outclass them in weapon fighting and that the Konoha nin could outclass them in fist fighting. So they cooked up a strategy that involved liberal use of vision obscuring substances; most notably some sort of dust powder that refracted light within itself to blinding levels.

The snake Sannin heard a body lightly touch down and kneel at his side. "What is it Kabuto?" Orochimaru asked, enraptured by the fight.

Kabuto tried to look at the fight, but averted his eyes. He didn't have the sensitive visual organs that his master had that allowed for one to look at such a sight with minimal distraction. "When do you want to enact the plan Orochimaru-sama?"

Orochimaru licked his lips sensually and slowly. "When the time is right, I'll give my signal. Until then, remain on standby with the rest of the forces."

Kabuto nodded, not that Orochimaru could see, although he remained around for longer than Orochimaru though he would. The Sannin looked down to see his subordinate trying to get words out, but not having the courage to do so. "What is it Kabuto?" Orochimaru asked with a large smile splitting his face.

"I-It's just… D-Do you think…"

"Out with it Kabuto."

"Do you think this is going to work?"

Orochimaru smiled heartedly at Kabuto. "A lot of things are going to happen in the coming hours. Even if my original plan fails, there's no way this could conceivably be called a failure."

Kabuto nodded, his resolve bolstered by the small speech Orochimaru gave him. "Yes sir. I'll go wait with everyone else." After saying this, he turned around and undid his Leaf forehead protector. In its place a Mist forehead protector found its way on his head.

00000000

Ai looked down at the genin tustling down below with mild interest on his face. "I didn't know Konoha still made such resourceful shinobi now a days."

Onoki nodded in agreement. "There's usually more specialized shinobi around."

"Yo, yo. Ninjas be super strong. Ninjas be super fast. Ninjas gunna kick- all the ass. Whee." Bee, who was behind Ai, started writing down his findings in his journal.

Yugito, who was also behind Ai, gave apologetic looks to all the kage and their bodyguards who turned to give Bee a strange look.

"Ninjas also be super weird." Kitsuchi whispered under his breath, to which Akatsuchi, Onoki, and the fourth Kazekage heard and began chuckling in response.

Hiruzen looked down at the fight with more than a little pride within his eyes. Naruto had grown up to be such a fine and well-rounded shinobi in such a short time frame that he couldn't help to feel pride well up within his chest.

Yagura's eyes narrowed at the fight below him, then hummed a suspicious little hum. "There was nothing in the bio about the Uzumaki being a sensor."

Hiruzen's eyes furrowed and he looked at the fourth Mizukage in confusion. "He isn't." The grandfather figure stated simply.

Yagura gestured at the fight below. "Then why is he using it?"

Hiruzen looked at the blond fighter with a little bit more of a magnified eye. At a closer examination, he found that what Yagura said was true. Naruto had his eyes closed and was reacting to the stimuli around him with an almost 'all-seeing eye'. It's a good tactic; after all, there is a lot of things in and around Naruto that his senses wouldn't normally pick up on because of the clouds of dust and scales. The only thing wrong with it was that Naruto had never shown any talent for being a sensor whatsoever.

"Anko." Hiruzen whispered behind him to the Mitarashi in question. "When did Naruto begin showing signs of being a sensor? And when did you think you'd tell me?" He asked in a severe tone.

Anko, in true Anko fashion, nervously rubbed the back of her head and laughed a little bit. "About a week ago." She said quietly. "I was going to tell you, but I never really got the chance."

Hiruzen acquiesced silently and resumed to watching the fight. It wasn't as if he put Anko in charge of telling him everything and anything Naruto did. No, he wasn't as manipulative and careful as that. Anything that Anko didn't want to bring up to him was her choice as his master. Still, it would have been nice to know that Naruto had the aptitude for such a rare chakra ability as that.

00000000

Naruto batted away a strike from Samui and drove his staff forward aimed straight for her sternum. She managed to jump to the side and get within Naruto's guard, who brought his bo staff horizontally across his chest. Samui, instead of trying for a stab, grabbed the staff with one of her hands and wrenched it downwards, then headbutted Naruto.

Naruto, not having expected that, reeled away, accidentally giving Samui control over his staff. Throwing it to the side, she ran at him again with a forward stab using her tanto.

Instead of flesh being sunk into, the tanto made a muted 'clanging' sound against Fu's water swords. Naruto turned around and braced himself for the punch that he knew was coming his way. Honestly, he didn't know what was wrong with that Lee kid. He could still kick ass when his vision was obscured and didn't seem to need to know where everyone was or what they were doing.

Naruto thrust a hand behind him and used chakra strings to make contact with the bo staff behind him. They connected and he threw the hand that the chakra strings were still connected to forward. Lee caught the hand, but was nailed in the face by the flying bo staff. Not one to let openings go, Naruto darted forward only to get a chest full of legs weights.

They were heavy enough and had enough heft behind them that Naruto was blown backward with enough force to hit Samui, who had been engaging with Fu and Kashikoi behind him. The weights didn't settle on his chest thankfully, else he'd be screwed.

Naruto coughed explosively and got himself up with the help of his bo staff, until he got hit in the back by what felt like a donkey kick, then got hit in the front, the side, the ass, the collarbone, the big toe, and practically everywhere else on his body. The hits were coming so fast and with such force that it only looked like he suddenly began having a severe case of the twitches.

When the onslaught was over, he fell to the ground in a heap with a still battle ready Lee, who was missing both his leg weights. "Naruto-kun, surrender. I don't want to hurt you."

Samui, Fu, and Kashikoi stopped fighting momentarily, waiting for a response but not daring to look away from the other fighter(s).

Naruto reached out and grasped the bo staff that was on the ground. Lee got back into his fighting stance and waited for Naruto to try and get back up.

Only he didn't. When the bo staff was pointed in Lee's general direction, Naruto used his chakra to pull a hidden mechanism held within the staff's interior. A small opening on the top of the staff made itself known when senbon began shooting out it at a remarkable rate. Before Lee could get away, there were already three senbon lodged in the meat of this thigh and two more sticking out of his chest. Lee jumped away and pulled at the senbon at a fervent pace.

When the last one was off his body, Lee stumbled a little bit. His vision was getting blurry and for some reason, he felt the sudden and immediate urge to throw up.

Samui and Fu began fighting again and Naruto stumbled up on his bo staff once more with a smirk on his face. His body was hurt all over and he wasn't thinking quite right, but he felt accomplished. It was a shame really. He'd been saving those senbon as a surprise in the latter rounds. Looks like he'd just have to use one of the other tricks hidden within the staff.

Naruto put his hands in the familiar cross seal and made a few clones, who surrounded him and began healing him with their medical ninjutsu. They set the rib that had broken in his chest and the internal bleeding as well as the welts and bruises that were popping up all over his body.

During that time, Samui had made moves to attack him while he was vulnerable, but Fu and Kashikoi wouldn't let her anywhere near. Once he was back into fighting shape, Naruto ran at Samui and began fighting her with Fu and Kashikoi.

It looked like they were going to win, even with the dust settling and the scales floating lazily to the ground. That is, until both of them got hit across the jaw with a single kick from lee, who was glowing a dangerous blue. Kashikoi yelped and retreated back to where her other two teammates fell

Samui stopped and began heaving in air as fast as she could. She looked at the super-powered Lee with a thankful expression, which was returned, only it looked really creepy with the whites of his eyes only being shown, his skin being a nasty red, and his hair floating lazily in the air.

Naruto and Fu got themselves up to look at the beast in front of them. That little tidbit of information that Lee could turn Super Saiyan was left out of the bio that the game gave him. Naruto groaned a little bit and pulled another mechanism within the bo staff. A blade popped out the side and clicked into place at the top, then the same happened on the bottom, but on the opposite side. His bo staff turned into a make-shift double scythe.

Red chakra began to float up from Fu's body and formed itself into a cloak with two wings. Naruto made a group of five shadow clones, all of which began to write something on the ground a furious pace.

Naruto and Fu made eye contact and nodded.

Looks like shit got serious.

00000000

The fourth kazekage's hands gripped the railings tightly. "How." He said between clenched teeth. "Does that Uzumaki know about the closely kept secret of Sand Puppetry?"

Onoki didn't look impressed by the fourth Kazekage's show of aggression. "How do you know it's Sand puppetry? There are devices everywhere that can do stuff like that."

"None that are that advanced and none that are activated with chakra." His dusty red hair gave his face a more furious look.

Hiruzen looked to Anko, who shrugged. "Didn' know that he picked that up."

Hiruzen placed his head in his hands. "Is there the possibility that he bought the bo staff like that and was taught its inner functions?"

"He… said that he made it himself." Anko said slowly, face slowly turning into one of confusion and sternness. "When was he going to tell me this?" She asked quietly, more to herself than anyone there.

The fourth Kazekage made a motion to Baki, who disappeared without a trace.

00000000

Just outside the Konoha walls.

There were at least one hundred Sand shinobi hidden out in the trees. They weren't noticed by the sensors or the patrols because of the strategic placing of themselves all along the canopy and the distance from the walls. They were all prepared to jump in and protect the Kazekage and their genin at a moment's notice and put on edge to all hell.

When the fourth's child and his partner was assaulted by unknown assailants on the way back to Konoha, the fourth deemed it necessary to have some military might just outside the walls in case shit hit the fan. Both Kankuro and Kiba weren't injured physically in the slightest, in fact, the only thing that happened was that the thugs managed to wrest away their forehead protectors. Still, there were aggressors of unknown origin out there, potentially targeting the Sabaku family. A little bit of clandestine military operations was to be expected of them.

It was a shame that Suna didn't know that the other four villages (sans Konoha) all had the same idea under roughly the same conditions and were all camped out at different points in along the perimeter of the walls.

00000000

The dust settled, chakra dissipated, and the toads dispelled. Lee was on the ground, breathing fitful breaths and Samui was thoroughly unconscious.

Fu's chakra dissipated and she stumbled a little bit, limbs out of energy at that point. The only thing keeping Naruto up was the double scythe, which had a little bit of blood amongst other fluids staining the edges of the blades.

The rest of the fight after Lee went Super Saiyan took all of one minute. That's not to say it wasn't memorable or dull. Just that everything that could have happened, happened really really fast.

Naruto started out by summoning some shield toads using an array that regulated the amount of chakra and how it was molded to summon his animals. He didn't really have a good grasp of using either his own chakra or the Kyuubi's chakra, so he got Jiraya to teach him the technique of writing his own sealing array to do it for him. It really only worked when he had some preparation time, so it probably would never be 'battle friendly'. That being said, the shield toads were really helpful in repelling Lee's super kicks.

Kashikoi got off to a good start when she managed to bite into Samui's calve muscles with her needle sharp teeth, hampering her ability to run. When the Kumo nin tried to kick off the small fox, she was tripped up when Kashikoi used a beast technique and extended her tail to wrap around Samui's feet.

Even with her lower body mostly immobilized, Fu had a hard time beating her down. Samui was just really good with using that tanto of hers. After eventually knocking her out, Fu flew around and engaged the raging Lee.

With the backup of his shield toads and an army of double scythe wielding yellow haired maniacs, Naruto and Fu eventually got Lee to tucker himself out with a few well-placed well-timed scythe hits and a shitload of dodging behind large amphibians.

At the end of it, the crowd was roaring in their own approval and Team Yellow-Green were about ready for a nap.

Up at the competitors box, they were given a wide berth and a few congratulatory high fives. Naruto got a kiss from Tenten, to which Fu's eyebrows rose in confusion then a little bit of hurt. She didn't say anything though. A mixture of not wanting to address it and supreme tiredness wouldn't allow her to.

Naruto never really got around to asking what Fu thought their relationship was the other night.

While they were resting up a storm, Naruto brought out the book and checked the contents. His eyebrows rose in surprise. He had grown three levels from that fight.

THREE!

That was so incredibly awesome for him. It took him a month of training to grow five levels, yet this one fight got him up by three. He even got the rewards for fighting both Samui and Lee, bringing his stats up even more than what he was planning on.

As discretely as he could, he waved Shikamaru over and told him of the situation.

"Three?" Shikamaru asked in surprise.

Naruto nodded vigorously. "What should I spend my points on?"

Shikamaru's eyes narrowed imperceptibly. "You should wait until a few more teams are out. You might need to put those points somewhere that could help with a specific fight."

Naruto gave him the thumbs up.

"Would the Teams of Shikamaru Nara and Karui, and Neji and Hinata Hyuuga please come down to the ring!?" Genma shouted out.

Karui whooped in joy and jumped down the stadium. Neji took the stairs and strode down in a confident manner while Hinata walked slightly behind him with a demure manner. Shikamaru sighed, walked over to the railing and looked down with a somber expression. "Should we just give up? It's such a hassle."

Karui, having excellent hearing, managed to get what the Nara said to himself and under his breath. She walked up the walls, grabbed him roughly by the neck, and threw him down to the hard earth below. "I didn't spend a month training in the land of treefuck just to give up. Now get up." Karui ordered.

Shikamaru held up a hand and got up to avoid further physical punishment and looked to his competition.

Neji was doing the classic Neji, looking like an asshole and being overconfident while Hinata was doing classic Hinata, looking overly shy and like she wanted to be doing anything else other than standing right there at that moment.

Shikamaru looked to Karui and quirked an eyebrow. She saw the quirk and nodded slightly.

Genma looked at both teams and asked if they were ready to fight. Shikamaru yawned and Hinata gave a polite "Yes."

"Then!" Genma said. "Begin!"

00000000

Up in the stands

"Can't believe Lee lost." Kakashi said offhandedly.

If one could have seen Asuma's and Kurenai's looks, they would have been described as very surprised. "I-I can't believe Lee lost to Naruto." Asuma said slowly.

"I can't believe that Fu girl is a Jinchuuriki." Kurenai whispered.

Shino nodded a little bit to no one in particular. "Naruto certainly has gotten strong since we last met."

Chouji was munching on chips to their side a bit slower than usual. During the fight, he'd been so excited that he nearly got through all of his reserve chips. As it was, he was down to the last bag; so he was trying to make it last for the rest of the rounds. As if noticing something for the first time, he began looking around in confusion. "What happened to Gai-sensei?" He asked.

The three jonin and two genin looked around as well. "Must've gone to see Lee." Kakashi finally said.

All around them the sounds of the crowds quieted considerably, getting off the high of the last match. Asuma looked down at the ring from his seat with a proud expression on his face.

"Shikamaru looks like he's handling himself well." Kurenai said.

"Yeah." Asuma said before reaching in his coat and grabbing a cigarette. He used a small fire jutsu to light it up and took a long drag. "If there's one thing he can do, it's to make a plan."

Down below, Shikamaru and Karui were taking the cautious route. Circling around the taijutsu users and trying their damndest to goad them into something. Nobody in the stands nor the two Hyuuga in question knew what they were being goaded into though.

Neji might be kind of an asshole, but he at the very least knew of the virtue of patience. He'd read up on all that he could he get hands on that pertained to his opponents. If the readings of the Nara clan held true, then Shikamaru had already planned the next hundred movements of every single fight that might possibly happen. The Hyuuga had been hoping that his Kumo partner, Karui, might be as hot-headed as she seemed and throw caution to the wind to attack them.

She held a sword with an ease that someone who had a lot of practice would normally have. Shikamaru with all of his planning would definitely be the more difficult to dispatch even if he didn't have much skill in close combat, so if Neji and Hinata could get Karui to surrender or render her unable to continue, they'd win even if they didn't beat Shikamaru. The thing that halted his thoughts of a frontal assault was the fact that Karui seemed as proficient in close quarters combat, if not more, proficient as he was. That sword that was gleaming dangerously in the sun wasn't making his decision any harder to make either.

They were circling around each other very languidly. There was no trace of hostility or any overtly energetic actions, just a very tense atmosphere. The crowd began to settle and stir a little bit restlessly. The previous two fights had been spectacles of the grandest scale. To see this match of careful consideration and slow movements was upsetting more than one of the civilians in the stands.

Neji didn't know what to do. If he got any closer, Shikamaru would trap him in his clan's jutsu. But Shikamaru wasn't advancing either. If perhaps Neji could reach and beat Shikamaru or Karui before the strands got to him, then he might beat them with two palm strikes. He didn't know how fast Shikamaru's jutsu was though, or if it could travel through air or any other medium. So they settled for their circling.

His peripheral lit up very suddenly and without warning. Something was approaching him from the ground and he didn't have the mental faculties to wonder what it was before jumping backwards as quickly as possible.

Subconsciously, his hand reached out and grabbed onto Hinata's bicep to make sure she was keeping up with him. In all their spars together, he'd concluded that she was inferior to him physically, mentally, and skillfully. If Shikamaru was as smart as Neji assumed he was, then he'd go for Hinata before him, seeing as she was the weak link in their team.

When the attack was done with, Neji noticed that the thing that advanced on them was a shadow. From the rate that it followed him, Neji knew that he was faster, but the shadow seemed more prehensile and capable of sudden turning. There was no way that a frontal attack would work.

The shadow was stopped just a few feet short of them before stopping and withdrawing back to the user.

Neji narrowed his eyes and activated his Byakugan for a few seconds. His special eyesight allowed him a look to where anybody was in a 359 degree sphere around him by looking at the inner workings of their chakra system, but it didn't allow for as much detail as his normal vision. Seeing as there was nothing out of the ordinary, he concluded that he didn't need it and deactivated it.

He risked a glance at Hinata beside him. She was as timid and demure as she normally was, but was taking this game of tension and waiting a bit better than he thought she would. That wasn't saying much though.

Neji's eyes narrowed as he bent a little bit down to whisper something in Hinata's ear. Once she heard his plan, she nodded and got into a taijutsu form.

Their little play of circling around each other had brought the Nara to the edge of the walls that were becoming shadowed from the sun overhead. It was obvious to Neji that Shikamaru had just been going along with their little game so he could orient himself with the shade, elongating his reach by leaps and bounds.

Neji took a few steps forward, into the reach of the shadow, but it never attached to his. Behind him, Hinata had her palm forward and pressed against his back at one of the hardest tenketsu to hit normally and also one of the most debilitating of them all.

Neji knew that the Nara technique of shadow possession took a hold of someone's physical body for as long as the person could hold it. However, it was a double edged sword. If someone hit the person being possessed, the person possessing would feel it too. Neji knew techniques to help the tenketsu recover quickly from being hurt. Shikamaru didn't.

Neji pressed onwards with Hinata by his side. When the two opponents started backing off, Neji pulled into a full sprint, Hinata still behind him and with one hand to his back.

00000000

Ai's eyes were started to go half-lidded. He placed his jaw in the palm of his hand and sighed a sigh of exasperation. "This fight isn't exactly interesting." He breathed out.

"Yo, bro. You have got to understand. The ninja have got their hands. They have got to lay their plans."

Ai's eyes narrowed even more. Usually, Bee's rapping made at least a little bit of sense. Now it was just gibberish.

Onoki started mumbling to himself a little bit. "That's what I hate about those Nara. They're all so slippery. Even when you think you've got one cornered, they pull something on you."

"I'm surprised they're working so well together." Anko said.

At hearing this, Hiruzen turned around a little bit and gave her a gaze searching for answers.

"Naruto and Shikamaru sometimes hang out at the Inuzuka compound." Anko said for clarification. "Sometimes Karui would come by to appropriate Shika. She's really hot-tempered."

"Yo yo. Karui, the unstoppable swordmistress. The-"

"Shut up Bee." Yugito hissed at the rapping man.

00000000

Down in the ring.

It's really really difficult to fight a person with a sword when one has to take into consideration that there must always be a person with a hand on your back and that person will always be a target to the same person with a sword.

That being said, it would come as a shock to anyone who knew of Hinata's and Neji's relationship if they saw how well they fought in that situation.

Neji didn't like Hinata for a multitude of reasons, but to let his emotions get in the way of getting a promotion would be just really stupid on his part. Hinata as well was very wary around her cousin, but she was still skilled enough in the physical arts to not get in his way while he fought Karui.

What really unsettled her was the fact that she didn't know where Shikamaru was. While jumping around and keeping her focus on keeping a hand on Neji's back at all time, even when the odd sword came by to almost stab her, she didn't have much concentration left to activate her Byakugan.

During a certain maneuver in which Neji ducked below a sword stripe, bringing Hinata down with him, she felt her muscles lock up and her body stop moving. With eyes wide with surprise, she was placed in the same spot while Neji, not knowing what happened, jumped away from her prone form.

The sharp edge of a sword was placed on her neckline. Standing triumphantly above her was Karui, looking at Neji with eyes filled with superiority.

"Surrender, or your cousin gets it." Karui shouted out.

Neji took a few seconds to get his breath and consider his options. Slowly, Hinata felt her body move upwards and place itself in a standing position with the sword still placed on her neck.

With the small amount of muscle control she had, Hinata grimaced in defeat. Neji had worked her into the ground during the month of training. To give up now would be to looked down upon by both Neji and the rest of the entire Hyuuga clan. But what could she do? Stare Shikamaru, who emerged from the shade, to death?

"YOU CAN DO IT HINATA!"

Hinata's eyes widened once more in shock and confusion. She knew that voice all too well. It was the voice of the person she admired most in the world. Naruto-godforsaken-Uzumaki.

Hinata grit her teeth and began concentrating inwards.

The thing that she was thinking of doing could turn out awesome, or terribly.

00000000

Naruto gripped the edge of the railing in anticipation. "YOU CAN DO IT NEJI!" he shouted out as well.

He felt a hand grip his bicep, diverting his attention to Fu. "Why are you cheering for Hinata and Neji?" Fu asked. "Hasn't Shikamaru been more of a friend to you as of late?"

Naruto shrugged and smiled amiably. "Dunno. I just kind of feel like… she can do more."

"What do you mean by that" Tenten asked, coming into the fray.

Naruto shrugged again. "Dunno. Plus I don't think Shikamaru would want an easy fight."

"What are you talking about?" Ino asked, jumping their conversation. "The only Shikamaru would ever want is an easy fight."

Naruto put up his shit-eating grin and laughed a little mischievously. "Then I guess I'm just an asshole."

"You got that right." Sasuke mumbled to himself.

00000000

Shikamaru didn't really know what to do at that point. The rules that Genma stated was that if one of the partners either died or was knocked unconscious, then the fight would be over in the favor of the other fighter. But Karui couldn't do anything to Hinata lest he get harmed as well. Neji seemed to be either aware of this or unaware and just thinking the situation out. Either way, he'd have to resort to plan B.

Shikamaru made a hand sign to Karui, who nodded ever so slightly. Not enough that Neji had any idea what she was doing, but enough that Shikamaru knew that she got it.

Plan B was letting go of the possession to allow Karui to knock out the opponent trapped under the possession. There was risk there in that Karui might not be fast enough to knock her out in time, but with Neji not conceding defeat, it was the best plan there was.

In fact, the plan would have succeeded very well, if not for the fact that Hinata exploded a few seconds before he released his hold.

Blue torrents of chakra streamed out of every pore on her body. The sudden expulsion of chakra destroyed his concentration and blasted Karui a few feet away. She landed on her neck and laid there, dazed.

Neji took a hold of this scenario for his favor and quickly advanced on the downed girl. Shikamaru got a hold of his jutsu again and sent another tendril to Neji, but the Hyuuga was able to get a few well-placed strikes all over Karui's neck and torso.

When Neji felt his shadow engulfed, the damage was already done and Karui was unconscious.

Neji's eyes flickered to Hinata's form. There was blood flowing from her mouth like a waterfall. Rips and tears covered her clothing and she was bleeding from a lot of them. Still though, her hands were clenching the soil and her arms were shaking with the effort required to get her body back up in fighting position.

Genma fell into the middle of the arena and called the match in the Hyuugas' favor. Medic teams rushed the area and pulled Karui into a stretcher to cart her away.

Neji calmly approached Hinata and knelt by her side. There were a ring of medics surrounding the downed heir, but she denied wanting their services. Soon, her arms gave out and she collapsed on the ground, devoid of any energy.

She tried to say something, but only succeeded in clearing her windpipe of the congealing blood in her throat. "I… I can still fight Neji-niisan," She finally spluttered out.

"No, you can't. It was our fate to lose from the beginning, when I was paired with you to take the exams." Neji said indifferently before beckoning the medics over to carry her away.

Before he could say 'fate', she was gone on a stretcher that was getting soaked in blood.

Neji began his calm ascent back to the fighters' area, but was stopped half-way by a slightly pissed off Naruto. "What did you mean by that?" Naruto asked quietly, his hair framing his face. Apparently, Neji's little pep talk with Hinata was heard by the fighters' area.

Neji looked from Naruto to Tenten, to Fu, to everyone else who bothered to pay attention to them. "She's weak. It was our fate from the beginning to lose-" Neji stopped mid-sentence when he blocked an elbow strike aiming for his nose. "Uzumaki-san." Neji said with glaring eyes. "I'll have to ask you to not try and attack me again."

"She tried her best, you asshole." Naruto said angrily. "She didn't have to do that, but she did."

"And yet, she still lost. I still lost. We still lost. It was our fate from the beginning to lose." Neji brushed aside Naruto and his anger to calmly walk over to the seats and sit himself down. Not looking any worse for wear.

Shikamaru soon joined them and was stopped by Naruto. "What was that thing she did?" he asked in a defeated tone.

Shikamaru shrugged. "Hyuuga have unparalleled ability with their inner chakra workings. They have a move called the 'heavenly rotation', but one would need the use of their muscles to use it. I assume that she did what she did in order to break my concentration and stun Karui. In a way, I guess it worked out for them."

Naruto looked down. "So… she knew she'd get hurt from it?"

Shikamaru took a deep breath and looked up to the ceiling in exasperation. "Just because I'm able to make plans that I think are sound, that doesn't mean that the irrational is not going to happen. Like a Hyuuga suddenly getting the will to never give up and exploding, knowing that it would harm her greatly."

Naruto's eyes took on a dead look. He just kind of stood there for a while. Shikamaru passed him and walked back to the seating.

Fu laid a hand on his shoulder and guided him back to where everyone else was. The only thing going through Naruto's mind was how it was definitely his fault that Hinata hurt herself in a most egregious and horrible manner.

A few more matches passed by without him being fully aware of it. Ino and Omoi lost to Sakura and Temari. Kiba and Kankuro forfeited to Gaara and Takkana, mostly because the older Sabaku was able to convince Kiba of the strength that Gaara possessed. Sasuke and Kurotsuchi almost lost to Sakura and Temari, mostly because of the kunoichis' superior teamwork.

Soon enough, Naruto and Fu were on the ground and facing a very devilish-looking Gaara and a very timid Takkana. Naruto blinked a few times and slapped his face twice. He needed to get into the zone.

Naruto brought out his bo staff and got into his fighting stance. Naruto didn't know much about Gaara other than the fact that he's really strong, practically royalty, and also a Jinchuuriki. This fight with him was going to be very destructive and showy.

It would have been too, were it not for the haunting flute melody that lulled him to sleep where he stood.

**AN/ Sorry for the slow update. Just got a 3DS… and a job… and Japanese lessons… and driving lessons.**

**I'm a busy man!**

**Either way, I kind of don't really know how I did on this chapter. I like to think I did well, but then I doubt myself, then I think I did well. Etc. Etc.**

**Give me your brutally honest, brutally horrible, brutally nice reviews in the little box below.**

**And as always, have a gentlemanly day.**

**Oh, and one last thing. If you support the need for a yaoi and yuri type filters for the site of , please send an email to ****support .com****. Just a short little sentence will do.**

***edit. Okay, that didn't work. fanfiction really needs to stop with that invisible link thing.***


	18. a pleasure to meet you

Chapter 18

Fire.

That was the first thing Naruto remembered when he woke up.

It wasn't just any normal fire either. This fire was blue, as if it was spawned in the underworld.

The scary thing was that Naruto had seen that fire once before in his life. When Yugito had shown him the perks of being a Jinchuuriki, she went through a partial transformation and was replaced for several minutes by a hellcat by the name of Matatabi. It was one of the scariest moments he had ever had in his life.

Scarier than stopping a giant snake charging his way. Scarier than standing up to the demon of the hidden mist. Scarier than fighting one of the strongest people in the world, Orochimaru. Appearance wise, this thing wasn't as intimidating as a snake whose head was several stories tall; no, the scariness of it came from the _feeling_ that the hellcat imparted upon him. It was as if the cat was only marginally aware of his existence. As if it was looking at an ant that it didn't want to waste energy stomping on. It was imposing in the sense that it knew that it was better than Naruto. The feeling that radiated off that two-tailed hellcat was one that Naruto would never forget.

And that was when Matatabi was the height of a human. Right now, it was the height of the stadium Naruto had remembered fighting in before falling unconscious.

As he came to, he felt uncomfortable. His arm was lodged underneath his belly and he didn't have the power to take it out from under him. He knew that he was high up in the air as his head was dangling off the edge of the highest part of the stadium. He couldn't move his neck, but he could see something that chilled him to the core.

Down below, a giant hellcat was engaging in combat with a giant oxtopus. It was _the_ giant hellcat. Matatabi.

Naruto didn't remember hearing about there being a giant oxtopus Jinchuuriki, but that didn't matter right now, because it was fighting one of the very few presences that chilled Naruto to the core.

And it was winning.

Its eyes were an angry red and its movement erratic. There was no sentience in there. Only animal instinct.

Only beast.

The tails that also made up its lower body were beginning to constrict around Matatabi. It gave out a howl of indignation and spewed flames onto its face. The oxtopus reared back and landed on the seats just under the kage box.

Matatabi pounced on the downed being, but just as its claws sunk into the squishy flesh, Gyuki wrapped two tentacles around its neck and midsection and threw the giant hellcat clear across the stadium.

One of the largest and most open man-made structures in the shinobi world was a cramped area for them.

That was the terrifying might of the bijuu fighting just out of harm's way for him.

Naruto tried to move his muscles, but had no success. His body felt like it was melted to the ground. Like he was becoming a part of the cement itself. Naruto clenched and unclenched his jaw, one of the movements that he found he was still in control of. He worked his jaw enough to the point where he could open it up comfortably and produced a sort of feeble groan.

Naruto didn't know why it only just suddenly occurred to him, but he couldn't hear either. The sound of his groaning was only vibrations in his skull.

He felt someone roll him onto his back and place his skull on a lap. His eyes floated up to see Kurenai Yuhi with a look of concentration on her face and hands hovering around his ears. Her face twitched every now and then, Naruto noticed.

It hit Naruto like a train. The sound of war and battle and death.

Naruto jerked upright and took in great heaps of air very rapidly. He turned to thank Kurenai, but she was already onto another person. He had a furred coat on and the same paralyzed expression that Naruto assumed he himself was wearing just moments prior.

Kiba Inuzuka.

"What's happening?" Naruto called out to no one in particular. The ground he was sat upon groaned and shook with a force. Blue flames erupted just at the edge that his head had been hanging off of. A strangled sound from a beast sounded out, deafening everyone on the ledge with him. A fiery tentacle flew from the wall of blue and heat to only miss Naruto by a meager six feet. A plume of dust rose up from where it impacted about a hundred feet away.

Naruto covered his head and surveyed his surroundings. He and everyone else was were situated on the tallest point of the stadium besides the kage tower, the upper ledge of the coliseum that had a good view of the fight between the large bijuu. On the ledge with him were about four other jonin. Kurenai, Asuma, Kakashi, and an ANBU whose arms were transformed into long tree branches.

Scattered on the ground in various states of consciousness were the genin that had been participating in the exams. Among the conscious were Takkana, Fujitsu, Shino, and Kurotsuchi. Neji was missing, but everyone else was there and sprawled out on the ground, looking bad, but not terribly injured.

Naruto rushed to Kurenai's side. "What's happening?" He almost had to shout out the question because of the sounds of battle surrounding the arena.

"Invasion." She said back to him.

"How can I help?"

"How good are you at dispelling genjutsu deeply imbedded within the cerebral cortex based on attacking the senses and impeding signals sent to the spinal column?"

"Not very."

"Then sit down and make sure to stay alive until orders come in."

Naruto sat down alright. He pulled out the guidebook and flipped it to the attributes section where he dumped all the points he got from the last three levels into genjutsu dispelling.

His attribute points apparently stopped incrementing at 40, so he got a grand total of 118 points to throw in, increasing it to 127/200.

Naruto rushed to Temari, the closest person to him, and put her head on his lap. With one hand, he put it into a half ram seal to concentrate his chakra, while he put the other one into a claw shape and gently placed his fingertips on her scalp and forehead.

With the newfound knowledge of dispelling genjutsu, he found that getting rid of genjutsu placed on the brain was mostly difficult because he had to navigate his chakra into the inner depths of her brain without messing up the other parts of her brain. His experience in being a medic helped somewhat, but it was still scary delving into a person's life-sustaining organ in the hopes of helping that person out.

Carefully prodding around the irregularity in her thinking organ, he finally smoothed out the chakra and brought her back to her senses. He almost felt like shouting out in joy, but stowed that excitement away and crawled over to the nearest person to begin the operation again.

Before he could get started however, a hand clamped down on his shoulder and turned him around to see Kurenai's shocked face.

"I… took a few classes. This is easier than I thought it was." Naruto said simplistically.

Before the Yuhi could question him more intensely, another deafening roar sounded out from the stadium and reminded her of her priorities.

After a good 2 minutes of intense genjutsu dispelling, all the genin were up and quite antsy considering the bijuu fight that was too close for comfort.

"Alright everyone!" Kakashi shouted out, getting the attention of everyone there.

Big eyes full of juvenile concern, nervousness, and confusion looked up at the imposing jonin with hope now intermixed. If anyone was to be relied upon in a time of crisis, it would definitely be Kakashi of the Sharingan.

"Now," Kakashi ordered. "All genin that are targeting Konoha, raise your hands."

There was a collective deadpan followed by everyone staring at the other warily.

"You've gotta be kidding me." Kurotsuchi stated, forehead held by the palm of her hand. "Well it wasn't Iwa, that's for sure."

"Kumo isn't invading." Karui stated.

"Neither is Suna." Temari said.

All eyes tracked themselves to Takkana and Fujitsu, who gave them all blank looks. "You really think Taki is the one who's invading? We're not stupid." Fujitsu said smartly.

Kakashi directed a lazy eye to the tree ANBU, who gave the lazy jonin a slight nod. "Alright," he said. "Since you all appear to be telling the truth, I guess you'll have to be evacuated to the monument. If you'd please-"

"Don't screw with me!" Karui shouted. "That's our sensei down there." She unsheathed her blade and pointed the tip towards the rampaging oxtopus. "I'm not going to some 'evacuation center', I'm going to fight!"

Kakashi pointed over the edge of the coliseum, to just down below. Karui walked over to see what he was pointing at and froze in her tracks.

Chaos. Madness. Death. Destruction. Shinobi of all nationality were fighting one another in a brutal melee of steel, fire, electricity, really anything that could be used to kill another person was being thrown to and fro in order to do so.

Everyone jumped over to see what had Karui in such a tizzy and all froze just as she did.

"See?" Kakashi said. "Frankly, neither I nor the chain of command knows who is targeting Konoha, or for what reasons. It seems to be the same with every other country."

"What about Kiri? There weren't any Kiri genin that made it." Takkana stated.

"You're not looking very hard are you?" Kakashi asked. "It isn't only us who are confused; every other shinobi of all the nations are fighting without knowing who or why they're fighting."

"So what, subterfuge?" Shikamaru asked.

Kakashi rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Seems to be the likeliest case. Since none of the genin were informed of anything, then it seems like there's an unknown element here."

Kurotsuchi leaned over the edge and squinted her eyes to get a better look at a particular ground assailant. "That isn't a standard Iwa uniform." She informed them. "See the lapel? It's supposed to be on the right side, not the left."

Shikamaru looked over the side dubiously. "So some unknown element is camouflaged into the rest of everyone else to sow panic and discord." The unknown Iwa shinobi turned and plunged a kunai into the neck of a mist nin. His allies turned and began aiming at other Iwa shinobi as well the imposter.

Everyone's attention was diverted to the black pole that suddenly sprouted from the ground near the academy and shot off into the sky. It retracted back down and an explosion was heard from somewhere over there.

"Hokaga-sama ordered us to escort the participants into the monument. Once this is over and someone finds out Konoha killed prospective genin on false grounds, it could mean war." The ANBU said.

"Assuming there's even a Konoha to get back to." Naruto said wildly. A giant blue tail hit the ledge they were on, missing them by hundreds of feet, but it was still alarming that they were still stationed on the thing considering the fight that was going on between the bijuu at a not so comfortable distance away from them. The flying dust and debris wave hit them and Naruto covered his head and face to make sure nothing important was hit.

Coughing a little bit, he pointed to the rampaging oxtopus. "The least we can do is to stop as much destruction as we can. We have to stop Bee. Karui, you said that guy's your sensei right? What's wrong with him? Why's he fighting Yugito?"

"He must be drugged or poisoned." Omoi said before Karui could answer. "He and Gyuki've been on good terms recently. I don't get why either of them should be acting like this." Omoi went on to overthink the situation in slightly loud mumbles, while Naruto turned to another in the group.

"Shikamaru, if we expose that guy's shadow, you can control him right?"

Shikamaru seemed reluctant to give a solid answer. "I haven't tried the possession on a Jinchuuriki before, but so long as he's a human, it should work."

"Alright. Fu, you can…" Naruto looked around a little bit.

Then he looked around a bit more.

Then a bit more.

Then he got a completely different scared than the one Matatabi imparted on him. "Where's Fu!?" Naruto cried out in fright and worry.

Kakashi put a hand on his brow to shield his eyes from the sun, then he pointed off somewhere to the forest at the edge of the village. "Last I saw her, she was off somewhere over there."

Naruto sweatdropped. "Have a sense of urgency why don't ya? And why's she over there? What happened to her?"

Just as he said that, a giant six-winged, single-tailed giant flying rhinoceros beetle thing emerged from the tree line and slammed into something on the ground. When it resurfaced, within its grip was an equally giant snake trying to writhe itself into a constricting pattern. A ball of scarlet inky blackness formed on the beetle's mandibles and was sunk into the snake's neck. The entire thing exploded, sending bits of snake everywhere and slightly obliterating a part of the village's walls. The beetle gained altitude and flew away, probably in the search of more prey.

"Okay." Naruto said. "She's probably fine for now. Kurotsuchi, how much chakra do you have left?"

She shrugged. "Enough."

"Fantastic. Temari, how much push does your wind jutsu have?"

The sandy haired girl grinned and unfolded her fan all the way. "A lot."

"Enlightening. Tenten, I know you're super accurate, but are you still accurate with big weapons?"

Tenten unfolded one of her scrolls menacingly. "Give me anything, I'll hit everything."

"Great. Ino, how far away can you do your soul thing from?"

"Depends on how still you're able to get the target."

"Noted. Takkana, those vials you've got on you, what do they do?"

She tapped a few of them, as if confirming their contents based on what they looked like. "Paralyzers, poisons, carcinogens, sleep liquids, aphrodisiacs, hair remover-"

"Variety is the spice of life after all. Kiba, what's the toughest thing you can cut through?"

The dog from within his jacket popped out and yipped out a reply. "We once tore through a foot of solid steel."

Naruto panicked for a second and felt around his jacket. The inner right side of his jacket was logged down with a very scared fox. Naruto pet it a bit to calm it down and took it out to give to Kurenai. "She's gotten stronger, but I still don't feel like I should bring her in for this. Can you take care of her?"

Kurenai blinked in surprise from being given an order from a genin, but acquiesced to take care of the fox anyway.

"Okay. Kankuro, Sakura, Fujitsu, Sasuke, Shino, Karui, Omoi, you guys are all on standby in case Bee is still doing something weird when we get him out."

They all nodded, Sasuke rather reluctantly, to his words. Before he could speak again, Chouji came up to him and asked a question. "Naruto, what about me?"

Naruto clapped him on the shoulder. "I've got a special plan for you."

Asuma stepped forward as well. "What about us jonin?"

"Got any large, all-encompassing jutsu?"

Asuma shook his head.

"Then you're on standby. What about you Kakashi-sensei?"

"I'm a better one-on-one fighter."

"Standby. What about you, Woody?"

"My wood jutsu is capable of restraining the powers of tailed beasts."

"That seems… pretty damn convenient."

The man with the ANBU mask nodded. "Yup."

"Okay, here's the plan guys."

00000000

Grand tree roots sprouted from the ground and entangled themselves in the apartments and other living residences next to Sarutobi Hiruzen. Their growing power split apart the plaster and concrete with ease and spiraled towards Hiruzen dangerously. He planted his adamantine staff on the ground and extended it. Holding onto the top of the staff, he was lifted up into the air and avoided the tree roots that impacted the Enma staff.

Sarutobi was able to glide himself down to the ground, but was almost swamped by metric tons of mudwater. He created an earth barrier at the last minute, diverting the water to either side. Things like street stands and rocks from the pavement washed up to collide with the wall, eventually weathering it down to where he had to abandon that pursuit and take to the rooftops once more.

Everything was going wrong for the elderly kage that particular afternoon. When Naruto's match was about to start, an unknown assailant tried his hand at attacking Yagura. The kage was able to cut both of the perpetrators arms off before reaching him, but didn't account for the two extra pairs of arms that came forward and slapped a sealing array on the kage's Jinchuuriki seal. The same thing happened with Bee and Yugito, only Yugito was able to decapitate the person trying to unseal the Matatabi, while another person grew out of the guy's back and slapped an array on Bee. After that, shit hit the fan. Somebody did the same to Gaara and Fu and even tried to do the same to Naruto. Luckily, Fu beat away the assailant before she became consumed by the chakra and the hate.

Bee fell into the stadium and was followed by Yugito, who was turning into a tailed beast herself in order to help out Bee. Fu flew away at some point. Gaara exploded into sand and dispersed, probably to the forest. All the genin were put under some sort of genjutsu. There were even some resurrections from Edo Tensei. The third Raikage, the first and second Hokages, and the second Tsuchikage. Ai was battling the third Raikage by himself. Onoki was fighting the second Tsuchikage with the help of his son and his compatriot Akatsuchi. Yagura went three-tailed and vanished into the forest after wreaking havoc on Konoha. And the fourth Kazekage went off to placate Gaara.

Off in the distance, two beast balls collided and sent a shockwave of air and dust particles into Konoha proper. If Hiruzen had to guess, then Fu was now battling Yagura in their animalistic states.

He didn't have long to think on the subject due to the giant water dragon sent his way. Before he could do anything, a giant snake impacted it with enough force to turn it into destabilized water. It rained down just as Anko alighted behind him.

"Hokage-sama! There's fighting in the streets. No one knows who's attacking. What are your orders?"

Hiruzen grabbed her by the waist and flung them away with the help of his adamantine staff. The roof they were standing on just before was demolished by a large tree root. "Do you have the seals from Jiraiya?" Hiruzen questioned.

She took a small bundle of papers from her inner trench coat and gave them to Hiruzen. He took a few and gave the rest to Anko. "Send Onoki and Ai some too, see if you can get in contact with the fourth Kazekage, and get me the status of Yagura."

Before she could fly off to what was told of her, Hiruzen grabbed her arm to stop her. "Where's Jiraiya?"

"He told me he was going to assist the fourth Kazekage." Anko looked past Hiruzen and threw two exploding kunai past his ear. They exploded into some hastily drawn up tree roots and scattered the first Hokage back a little bit. "Is it really so bad that you need his assistance?"

Hiruzen leaned on his staff and stopped to catch his breath. "If Orochimaru is here like I think he is, then we're going to need all the assistance we can get."

Anko's breathing hitched at the sound of her sensei's voice. Hiruzen's gaze hardened. "Go do as I ordered. Once you finish with those, check up on the genin. If you see Orochimaru, Do. Not. Engage."

Anko's face turned cold. "Yes Hokage-sama."

Just as she jumped away, the two previous hokage jumped up onto the rooftop opposite Hiruzen and brandished throwing knives. It didn't matter that they seemed to be significantly powered down, they were still extraordinarily dangerous individuals in their own right.

The only thing on Hiruzen's mind, however, was Orochimaru; or more specifically, where he was at the moment.

00000000

Orochimaru grinned in glee at the passage he was reading. Outside, in the hall, people were bustling all around. Nurses were evacuating the elderly and comatose, doctors were trying their best to patch up the injured shinobi flowing in the doors, children were running around and screaming for their parents.

Just a normal day at the office for one twisted Sannin.

But Orochimaru wasn't at the hospital for any lethal reason. No slipping dangerous chemicals in IV drips. No killing very skilled combat medics. He wasn't even there to lower moral by sending a few snake summons scurrying around.

No, he was there for a much more important reason.

'Kukukuku. Naruto Uzumaki… I always knew you were a special kid. But to think you had variable DNA? My, my… I think I've got a better target than the Uchiha now.'

"Hey, who's in here?" a doctor asked frantically, being a horribly unhospitable person by so rudely opening the door without knocking.

Uncaring, dull brown eyes looked back at the man. He pulled his shaggy dirty blond hair out of his eyes and tucked it behind his ears. "Looking over some sensitive records." The man said languidly.

"Just… shred them when you're done. Then get out there and help us with the soldiers! They're dying out there."

And just like that, the rude man was out of the office before the imposter could even chuckle evilly. He tucked the records into his hospital uniform and exited the premises through the window.

The walls of Konoha crumbled down, or at least a section of it. The reason for this was the flying beetle wrestling with the three-headed snake on the ground of city. They were both knocked even further in by the turtle monster that came hurtling towards them. It unfolded itself and sent its tails forward, intending to stab its quarry.

They bounced off the beetle's armor, but the snake wasn't so lucky.

The beetle fell on the ground as it found the thing it was perched on suddenly vanish in a puff of smoke. The turtle fell on top of the beetle, making a resonating cracking sound blast forth from their position.

Howling in pain and outrage, the beetle clamped hard on the turtle and beat its wings furiously. The turtle's tails frantically beat against the outer shell of the beetle to no avail as it began getting lifted up higher and higher off the ground.

The beetle suddenly changed flying patterns and fell down on the turtle with the extra thrust that six giant wings gave. The turtle bleated out horrendously and got out from under the beetle.

Their fight began anew and Orochimaru only laughed at such a marvelous sight.

00000000

'Okay Kyuubi, I'm gonna need some juice.'

Naruto heard some insane chuckling from within his mind. **"Take what you need."** The Kyuubi said all too happily.

Naruto frowned a bit before doing some seals and slamming his hand on the ground. A sealing array popped into existence, but instead of the hulking monolith that was Gamabunta, five medium sized toads popped up.

Naruto looked up at the house sized creatures. One was holding a large bo staff, one had two bucklers on either arm, another was holding dual knives, another had a ball and chain attached to a scythe, and the last one was wielding a large katana.

The young lad scratched his head in confusion at the sight of the five creatures. "I could've sworn I used enough to summon Gamabunta." Naruto murmured a little loudly.

"Chief Gamabunta has already been summoned by another toad summoner along with all the other greater sized toad fighters."

Naruto sighed into his palm in exasperation. "I guess five mediums is as good as one big one." Naruto pointed to the bijuu brawl happening in the coliseum. "You think you could help us restrain that guy down there?"

The toad with the bo staff looked at the fight with a calculating eye. "Perhaps we could divert its attention away, but don't expect us to be fighting. Only the chief has ever fought with a bijuu before, and that almost killed him."

Naruto gave the toad a thumbs up before addressing the genin fighters behind him. "Okay guys, slight change of plans. Temari, Kurotsuchi, Tenten, and Woody all pick a toad to get on." Naruto pointed to the toad with the bo staff. "You're with me, Kiba and Akamaru, and Shikamaru. Everyone else, when it's safe, get down to the stadium floor. We might need you. Chouji, you know what to do, right?"

The chubby Akamichi nodded with gusto.

"Then let's get to it." Naruto said with a grin.

Yugito dodged a straight punch sent by Gyuki by ducking under it. Springing her leg muscles upwards, she launched herself at the oxtopus's chest and sunk her teeth into its abdomen. Fire gushed out of her jaws and caramelized the chunk of flesh she was holding onto. With a great tearing motion, she ripped that chunk out and spat it out to land on the stadium seats.

Gyuki roared in pain and brought both arms above his head and sent them crashing down on the cat. One glanced off the side of her coat, causing only minimal damage, but the other arm landed directly on top of her skull.

Stunned, she was unable to stop the tentacles from wrapping around her and constricting as tightly as snakes would. She flared her fire outwards in the hopes of searing off the tentacles, but that only caused them to tighten their grip.

Yugito didn't feel good. Fighting using Matatabi's form was always draining for her and the attacks that Bee, or Gyuki, or whoever was in charge was sending her way were amplified by the sense magnification. Bee had always been there for her as a good friend. Someone who knew what she went through. It broke her heart to have to fight him like this. To know that if she didn't kill or incapacitate him, he was certainly going to kill her.

And it was looking that he was just about to do that as well, until a toad hopped up to him at head level and someone threw hugely oversized pointy things in his eyes. Gyuki roared in pain and flailed around, dropping Yugito in the process.

He threw an arm out, in hopes of crushing the toad, but another hopped from below and, with the help of human on top of its head, sent a horrible cutting wind at his arm. It pushed and tore the arm out of alignment and made the hit go wild, completely missing the first toad.

On the ground, another toad was blasting huge fountains of quicklime all over its tentacles. After thoroughly coating the prehensile appendages, the toad itself, not the human, vomited great quantities of water. They mixed together and spread the quick drying cement even further along the tentacles than they normally would.

Gyuki thrashed and struggled blindly and was even able to free some of the tails from their cemented position, until one last toad came forward and sprouted a forest from the human on top of its head. The human didn't have enough power to completely engulf the toad, but there was enough in him to restrain and cover the tentacles even more.

Desperately, he tried to form a beast ball, but what looked like a spherical human boulder tumbled all the way up its tentacles to its chest to its neck and finally hit the chin with earth shattering force. The jaws forcefully closed and destabilized the beast ball. It crumbled away into nothingness without any harm to the genin.

Its tentacles were retrained, but it still had the use of its head and arms, to which it used with impunity. Gyuki might have been blind, but he still had other senses to rely on. Although every time he tried to punch somewhere, or headbutt where he thought a toad was, he got a gust of wind or a flurry of steel for his effort. The toads even got over their fear eventually and came at the immobilized oxtopus with their own weapons. Beating the oxtopus across the head with a bo staff, slapping away errant strikes with arm bucklers, stabbing at important joints with knives, smashing its jaw with a ball and chain. Whittling away the giant bijuu little by little until it finally slumped over and covered its head with its arm to escape the abuse.

A toad landed on his back and two passengers disembarked. Double spiraling canines drilled into the nape of its neck, grinding away at the tough flesh coating the place where Bee was located. Gyuki arched its back in pain and surprise while another passenger disembarked with a double scythe to hack away at the remaining flesh, taking great cared to not accidentally kill the Jinchuuriki placed safely inside.

Once a piece of human was showing, a shadow floated down from the toad and attached itself to Bee. Gyuki froze mid-roar, completely immobile now.

"Arrgh!" Shikamaru groaned out from atop the toad. "Naruto!... hurry up… I can't… do this forever." The Nara said between grunts of effort.

Naruto nodded and pulled and pulled at the Jinchuuriki clenched inside, but it held firm. Naruto summoned a few clones to combine their strength. The results were the same.

The Uzumaki was on the cusp of freaking out when a shadow of a certain lazy jonin covered the sunlight beating down on his face. The sound of a thousand chirping birds resounded in his ear as Kakashi neatly cut out Bee out of the flesh using a lightning blade and hefted him out of the confines of the purple flesh.

Shikamaru undid the possession and slumped down on the toad in relief. The purple flesh began to disintegrate and everyone perched on the beast jumped to the ground before they could get seriously hurt.

Everyone gathered in the stadium around Kakashi and Naruto. Yugito too, undid her beast mode and limped over to where Bee was being supported by Kakashi.

Bee began to groan in pain. Takkana came up behind him and buried a syringe into his bicep and pushed the plunger. The Jinchuuriki slumped onto Kakashi's back for good. Usually, Jinchuuriki would have a resistance to the things like paralyzers and other such things, but now that he was burned out on Gyuki's chakra, the tranquilizer was having an effect on him.

Yugito limped over and took Bee from Kakashi and laid him on the ground. She checked the seal on his bicep and gingerly peeled off the piece of paper that had nearly become a part of his him at that point. It made a nasty squelchy sound as it started to disengage and it turned into ashes when it was finally off of his arm.

Yugito sighed into her palm and fell to the ground in exhaustion. Naruto came over and started checking her body for any wounds. "You're lucky to be alive you know." He said. "If you got hit even a foot closer to your neck, you would've died from shock."

Yugito almost laughed at the remark she was getting from a thirteen year old, but it hurt her chest too much.

"One of your ribs is fractured. I'm going to have to reset it." Naruto said evenly.

When he began to get rid of her upper body clothing, she tried to bat him away feebly. "I've gone through worse." She rasped out.

"If I don't set this now, one of your ribs is going to puncture a lung, or worse."

Yugito took as deep a breath as she could and finally agreed. Naruto undid the clips on her front armor piece and took a knife to cut down her shirt. He felt an unnatural presence behind him and found all the genin looking at him as he bared her bruised chest to the world. "Go check on yourselves for any injuries and… I don't know, wait for orders. I need some space."

Once all the genin were away, Naruto ignited the mystic palm and soothed her chest pain. She smiled and chuckled a little from the feeling of relief that spread through her chest and body.

A sweat drop appeared on his brow as he bit his lip and focused his energy on the rib a bit more. A sudden tug with his chakra and the rib was back in place. Yugito groaned and winced at the sudden pain, but it was gone almost as soon as it was there with the help of his jutsu.

With the help of Naruto, Yugito managed to get into a sitting position. Feeling her nipples harden from the sudden cold, she immediately grabbed her ruined shirt and covered her modesty. Naruto handed her the armor piece, which she clipped back on with a practiced ease.

Naruto looked at her with the eyes of a practiced doctor unconcerned with such things and breasts. Yugito laughed a little bit. "You must've seen some shit for someone so young." She commented.

Naruto quirked a brow. "Not… a lot of things. Why?"

"Well… thirteen year olds usually blush and stammer when they see boobs."

Naruto scratched the back of his nervously and grinned a little sheepishly. "I did that at the hospital once, but I got slapped upside the head. It's not really efficient to be nervous around breasts when treating torso wounds."

"Huh, I see… you're still a genin, right?"

Naruto nodded.

"You're not some… super secret child ANBU project that got sent in to whittle away the competition?"

Naruto shook his head. "I'm not… that strong, you know."

"Maybe not, but you know how to lead people efficiently. You also know how to come up with pretty good plans on the spot."

"What're you getting at?"

"The people who determine who gets a promotion comes from the kage of the village they're from, but input is also given from the people in the stadium and the kage box. I'll put a good word in for you. I'll make sure Bee does too when he comes to."

Naruto's eyes widened. "Really?"

Yugito smiled at such surprised eyes. "You just took down a bijuu with the help of people you don't know. Of course I'm putting in a good word."

"But I barely did anything. You did most of the work. Oxtopus was really beaten down when I got to him. Even then, I only helped out in the end."

"Being a jonin means more than just being strong. In fact, it mostly comes from the ability to lead well. I think you've got that in spades, so I'm gonna help you out. Now… I think I'm going to take a catnap. Wake me when you need me." With that, Yugito slumped against Naruto's arms and passed out from exhaustion.

Naruto smiled affectionately at the cat woman. 'Wait… did she just say jonin?'

**AN/ hello all you beautiful people. I'm back with an update.**

**You know, something weird happened. In between me releasing the other chapter and me releasing this one, I got a huge increase in attention. That usually only happens when I only just release a chapter. Was I mentioned somewhere? And if so, I'd like to know so I can thank him or her or it.**

**Also, Bravely Default for the 3DS is really good.**

**What did Naruto get for defeating Gyuki? What's Anko going to do? How's Fu? Where did Neji go? Learn all these and more, next time.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	19. a hope you'll guess my name

Chapter 19

_Total experience gained: 10,000,000_

_Opponent half defeated: -5,000,000_

_Help from (10) people: /20_

_Good Leader bonus: x2_

_(1) Ally drastically injured: /2_

_Total experience gained: 250,000_

_You gained (12) levels. You are now level 28. +60 base stat modifiers, +480 attribute stat modifiers._

The screen in front of Naruto's face was somewhat different than usual. Instead of a small window that could be easily read in the book, this one popped up and out of it, as if it was signifying something far more important than just a fight in the arena.

Which it kinda was.

Wasting no time at all, Naruto put all the points across his stat board as evenly as he could. It wasn't like he could consult someone who had read up on all the merits and knew of all their requirements firsthand. If he did, he might have put all the points he had into speed, reflexes, and sealing, giving him the necessary requirements for the hiraishin jutsu.

But now wasn't the time to talk to Shikamaru about that. Now was a time of action. And Naruto was the man of action that the world needed.

**AN/ I feel like it'd clutter up the screen if I tried to put everything in here, so you'd have more luck if you just went to the google docs on my profile page to check out his stat increases. Like I said, he just spread all the points out, so you can think of it as a general increase in ability for him.**

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: DEFEAT (ENRAGED) GYUKI. +1 of Bee's swords, new kenjutsu skill 'multi-sword technique', increased influence with Bee, increased influence with Gyuki, increased influence with Yugito, increased influence with Matatabi, increased influence with Kumo, unlocked 'rap' attribute skill, unlocked inking merit._

Just as Naruto was scratching his head as to where he would be getting one of Bee's swords, the groaning of the man in question brought Naruto to his side. He took out a kunai from his holster and held it to the large man's neck just in case. "Are you okay… mentally?" Naruto said loudly and clearly.

"Yo, yo. I'm the legendary Kirabi. Ain't nothing gonna hold down me."

Naruto sweatdropped. "I'm gonna take that as a no." he held out his hand to Bee and helped him up.

"Hey kid, I gotta thank ya. You really helped out a playa."

"Yeah, don't mention it. Do you… know what happened?"

Bee nodded. "Yugito Nii killed a sneaky fuck, and I really should have ducked. Gyuki went mad, then I took a back seat, which wasn't very rad." Bee frowned at that last part, realizing the extent of that bad rhyme. He took out his notebook and scribbled furiously in it. "Hey kid, you're good with weapons right?"

Naruto nodded.

Bee took out a sword from one of his sheathes. "Lightning glows in here like a light. Really quick, really fast, really good for kicking some serious ass."

Naruto gingerly took the lighting blade from the quirky black guy and sealed it away. He tried to question the rhyming guy some more, but his two students who weren't in the medic area realized he was awake and ran up to him with exclamations of joy and happiness.

He smiled at first, but it quickly turned into a frown. Why did he feel like he was forgetting something? Why did seeing student and teacher reunite make him feel queasy.

His eyes widened in shock and understanding.

The medic area.

He completely forgot about the medic area.

Hinata, Lee, and Samui were in there when Bee went beast mode. To his knowledge, they still were there.

As fast as he could, he sprinted across the splintered and battered arena to where the hole leading into the medic bay was located.

The walls were cracked and the ceiling leaked dust and drywall every time one of Naruto's feet heavily impacted the ground below. Miraculously, the lights were still on. Just goes to show how much a brutal pounding this place could take.

Naruto slid into the doorway to the medic area and was met with a strange sight.

The floor was littered with shinobi of all nationalities and one Maito Gai, who happened to be snoring peacefully whilst cuddling the battered form of a hulking Iwa shinobi. Standing up tall and proud through it all was Neji Hyuuga, legs bent and palms up in a fighting stance. On the beds were the resting and well forms of Hinata, Samui, and Lee.

"What happened here." Naruto asked breathlessly.

"When the fighting broke out, I assumed there would be some who would take advantage of the chaos to kidnap lady Hinata. I came here to stop that from happening."

Naruto's gaze was drawn to the peacefully sleeping Gai.

Neji answered the unspoken question. "He was hit by a tranquilizer before he could do anything."

Naruto breathed a sigh of relief before creating 3 clones to check up on the injured individuals.

"Has the fighting stopped?" Neji asked.

"The fighting between the big cat and the big ox-octopus thing. People are still brawling outside though."

"Have we received reinforcements then?"

Naruto gave him a long stare. "No. We didn't. With the collective effort of all the participating genin and a few jonin, we subdued a bijuu."

Neji's eyes narrowed. He took a small while to come up with a response. "…I'm not able to tell whether or not you're being sarcastic, Uzumaki-san."

"I'm being one hundred percent truthful here. You can check for yourself outside." Naruto said coldly.

Neji took a breath and opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came through.

Naruto crossed his arms over his chest and smirked a little bit. "What? You going to spout some bullshit about fate or something? 'Oh Naruto, it was fate that you would meet your end on the battlefield. But you haven't. Don't I feel like such a dumbass?'"

"Uzumaki-san…" Neji said dangerously, his jaw clenching and unclenching furiously.

"What is it Neji? Tell me. I'm dying to know."

"You… you don't know what I've been through. You don't get to speak."

"Then tell me what I'm doing right now. What is it Neji? What have you been through? Did your daddy take your doughnut? 'But ooohhh, it was my fate to eat that doughnut.'"

"My father is dead." Neji hissed between clenched teeth. "My father died so my uncle could live. The reason my father died is because he was born only moments after my uncle. Because of this, he was banished to the branch family so he could act as my uncle's body double! You want to tell me fate doesn't exist? It was my father's _fate_ to die for my uncle."

Naruto looked unimpressed. "Oh yeah, I heard about the Hyuuga. It's pretty weird that there's two families in one, but that doesn't give you the right to act like an ignorant asshole! And neither does the fact that your dad died! And neither does the fact that Hinata was born your cousin!"

"Because I was born in the branch family, I was immediately subjected to the fact that no matter how hard I tried, Hinata would always be ahead of me. Because of fate, I will never be accepted."

Naruto pinched the bridge of his nose. He could hear footsteps come up to the doorway and stop. They were probably checking up on him and the injured, but didn't want to intervene in their argument. "You. Are one grade-A imperceptive moron aren't you? Even with your super eyes, you can't even see how stupid you sound. Who cares that you won't be accepted by a bunch of cold, unloving prudes with sticks up their asses? Maybe if you didn't act like such an asshole to your cousin, then she'd actually like you, instead of aspiring to be you!"

Neji paused for a second. "What do you mean by that?"

"Did you ever stop to think why Hinata decided to blow herself up instead of give up? It's because she didn't want to be seen as weak in the eyes of her family. It was because she was looking for _your_ acceptance."

"That's… that's a lie."

"Truer words haven't been spoken, asshole!"

"How can you know that? How can you know what she thinks? How can you know why she does what she does? She doesn't know you! She doesn't talk to anyone!"

"I know how she thinks because _I am_ her. It's in her body language. It's in how she speaks to and about you. I spent the entirety of my life trying to get people to notice me! I've spent the entirety of my life trying to get people to accept me for who I am! Not what I am! I can tell Hinata has been doing to same thing because I did it myself! She just wants you to accept her."

"And why would people ever hate you, huh? You're a clanless orphan. There are no expectations for you. There is no one by your side, knowing they are better than you because of birth. You have no right to speak as if you know anything! You have no idea the weight that being caged has on you!"

"I have no idea the weight? I have nothing going against me? My entire life has been against me! People hated me because I existed! People would whisper and gossip and have secret conversations about me because when I was born, I got slapped with the responsibility of holding a giant nine tailed fox in my gut!"

"Naruto…" Kakashi said dangerously from behind him. "That's a village secret, be careful-"

"Frankly, I don't care if it's a village secret. It's my secret and I'm going to tell whoever the fuck I want." Naruto turned back to Neji. "So yeah, asshole. I know a little bit about how it feels like to be hated at birth. I know a little bit about how it feels to bear a burden you didn't ask for. But hey, at least you had a dad. At least you were born into splendor. At least you were born with the ability to see three hundred and sixty degrees to fuckwhere. I was born with nothing but sneers of hatred and big a fox in my gut. You know what though? I'm not unhappy because of it. I _could_ have hid behind my shortcoming and stopped trying, but I didn't. I kept on trying and trying and trying until people had no choice but to accept my presence. You are weak- no, actually, you're the weakest out of every single person behind me."

Naruto directed an arm behind his back and pointed at a random person. "Because Ino was born the way she was, she's probably never going to be hokage. She wasn't _born_ with the ability to shit trees. She wasn't _born_ with the ability to direct water to her will. She wasn't _born _with a sword made out of lightening. She wasn't _born_ lucky enough to get both of the previous hokage as her sensei. Because of birth, there are already things that she can't do. But she doesn't use that fact as an excuse to stop trying, unlike you. I barely know the names of half the people behind me, but I know for a fact that every single one of them is stronger than you are. Stop hiding behind your birth. Stop using excuses for your failure. Now, Konoha's being destroyed and it could use a fighter like you. Are you going to stew in your misery, or are you going to save the Village Hidden in the Leaves with me?"

00000000

Orochimaru wasn't doing much in particular. He was perched on a rooftop with a scenic view of the destruction of Konoha and reading the more in depth logs that Tsume Inuzuka wrote about her findings of Naruto's genetic makeup.

She never really found out why Naruto's DNA suddenly changed. She noted that it happened all across his body at once, ruling out the slight chance that a stem cell might have mutated and multiplied across his body as it created new cells to replace the old ones. That meant that it had to be a mutation in the chakra as well, meaning that Naruto might have an undefinable, unstable, and invisible kekai genkai. Truly interesting. If he could get those genes in a body of his own, he might not even need Sasuke to get the sharingan.

Two people chanced upon the rooftop and went into subordinate pose. One was a haggard looking mist ANBU with two sets of arms, previously three; and the other was a Suna chunin that had bluish hair poking out of his turban and weirdly dark lipstick on. Orochimaru lifted a brow at their state of being. "Report."

"Tayuya was killed by the Nanabi right before it fully formed." Ukon said. "Sakon was killed, but I managed to get the drop on the hachibi container."

"Yagura cut off my arms before I could get the seal on him." Kidoumaru said behind his mask. "I don't think he expected me to have two more sets, so I slapped my plan B seal on him."

"And what of Jirobo?" Orochimaru asked.

"He's still in the streets spreading as much discord as possible."

"The kage?"

"The Hokage, Raikage, and Tsuchikage are fighting the reanimations, but it looks like they got seals to stop them. The Kazekage is fighting the Ichibi with the help of Jiraiya, and the Mizukage is…" Kidoumaru trailed off and glanced at the fight between the Sanbi and the Nanabi. "If you still wish to kill the Third, then we must move quickly or he might get reinforcements and become unapproachable."

Orochimaru hummed an agreement. "Yes, I suppose. What about Kabuto?"

"Still at the hospital, creating mysterious deaths amongst any shinobi that happens to come in…" Kidoumaru faltered a little bit.

Orochimaru directed a queer gaze at the spider man. "Is there something you need to say?"

"The- The, uhh… the fight between the Hachibi and the Niibi has ended in the Niibi's favor."

"What's the problem? Go get the body of the Hachibi container."

Kidoumaru winced. "The problem is that a genin who was in the chunin exams was able to round up the rest of the genin and fight down the Hachibi down without any casualties on any side. The Hachibi container and the Niibi container are both in good health and are looking to rejoin the battle."

Orochimaru smiled a large, ugly smile. "Interesting. Just who was this genin?"

"Naruto Uzumaki."

If possible, the smile that threatened to split his face almost did just that. "Naruto Uzumaki… you just create the biggest spotlight on you that you can, don't you?"

Orochimaru stood up and vomited the Kusanagi into his hand. "Kidoumaru, Sakon, you're with me. We're going Hokage hunting."

00000000

"**Synergy Inuzuka style: Dog with Eight Fangs"** eight separate twirling cyclones all impacted an area at roughly the same spot. Chomei's exoskeleton buckled and cracked under the pressure of the combined efforts of the Inuzuka family.

Chomei struggled fitfully against the wood structures that captured her head and tried to raise her wings to lift off to no avail. They were logged down with water from a certain lazy jonin's water dragon strikes and were too heavy to be of use.

Tsume, Hana, and Kiba Inuzuka took a few seconds to finalize one strike on Chomei's outer shell and pointed themselves all at a single cracked and dented point. They all impacted at the same time with the same speed and the same piercing power. The crack spread out on the focal point to greater and greater levels until the entire section of the exoskeleton cracked apart. They abandoned their pursuit and Naruto took the next cue. With the bo staff in hand, he wedged it in a space between the tough armor plates and leveraged it against his staff.

The entirety of his staff was reinforced with steel alloy that he borrowed from the Higurashi. It was so tough that he was certain the he would break before the staff would. With the upgrades to his strength and agility, he was able to finally tear out an entire piece of the exoskeleton and reach a hand inside. It was soft and squishy and wet and unbearably hot, but he finally grasped an appendage. Pulling with all his strength, he got Fu out of the rampaging Chomei out with a sickeningly wet 'SCHLICK' sound.

Chomei paused and began to disintegrate at an alarming rate. He put Fu in a bridal style carry and jumped off the large beast. She was covered in some sort of orangish green slime and not moving all too much.

When he impacted the ground, he immediately turned her over and gripped at and all around her shoulder blades, where the seal was located.

Her seal looked strange and unnatural, but there was nothing to grab. Naruto swore and brought out a kunai. He placed an incision just along the edge of her seal and stuck his thumb and forefinger in the wound. Naruto pieced around until he grabbed something abiotic and pulled.

The seal that had sunken under her skin gave way with a sickeningly wet 'SCHILCK', the second disgusting thing he had to pull out in order to save his friend. But if it was to save Fu, he'd go to the ends of the world and back again.

It turned to ashes in his palm and he fired up the mystic palm technique to close the wound on her back.

He looked around. The fighting had all but stopped in that particular area, probably due to the giant decomposing beetle thing right next to him.

Eight separate impact points were heard at the edge of his vision. Back at the coliseum, he took a team meant to go stop Chomei while Shikamaru took another team to stop Isobu. Fortuitously for them, he ran into the rest Kiba's immediate family and hatched a plan to get Fu out of Chomei.

Naruto looked over to Isobu to see a large similarly decomposing turtle. He breathed a sigh of relief and fell on his ass, cradling Fu's head in his arm.

The Inuzuka family and their familiars came up to Naruto. Tenzo fell from a rooftop near where they were. Kakashi melted from the shadows. Rock Lee and Maito Gai ran up from holding down the tail. The Kumo trio came out from the alleyways where they had bee distracting Chomei. Dozens more shinobi of all nations slowly trickled out, looking at each other warily, waiting for someone to make the first, preemptive strike.

Naruto laid an ear near Fu's mouth.

She wasn't breathing.

Naruto opened her mouth and cleared out all the orange gunk stuck inside, then he laid her down, tilted her head back, and breathed air into her lungs, keeping a close eye on her chest to make sure it was rising and falling like it should.

Next, he took a kunai and split her white battle shirt and mesh undershirt down the middle, giving her some breathing room. Placing one hand on top of the other, he began CPR.

He went through the cycle between chest compressions and giving breath until she finally opened her eyes wide and coughed with all her might. Naruto stopped what he was doing and excitedly make 'come hither' gestures, encouraging her to cough out the rest of the gunk on her own.

Finally, with a great heave of effort, she launched a semi-congealed piece of orange sludge out of her windpipe and began taking in huge gasps of air. Naruto held onto her tightly as she coughed the ancillary sludge out.

When she finally had her breath back, she turned her head slightly to the side. Her exhausted form was unable to move beyond slight face movements. She tried to make words come out of her mouth, but Naruto shushed her.

"You've done enough." He said. "You should rest now. Leave the rest to me and everyone else."

Fu seemed content to do just that. Her eyelids fluttered down. The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was Naruto's proud, happy face.

Naruto took off his jacket and covered Fu with it. The fur lined coat allowed for some comfort as she began to rest fitfully.

The Uzumaki smiled down at the orange tinted girl. No matter what, she never gave up. Something he really liked in her.

Naruto stood up and looked at the shinobi surrounded him. He put his hands on his hips and belted out an order. "Listen up guys! You've all been tricked. Some unknown village disguised their shinobi for the shinobi of your nations, and decided to wreck shit. We need to stop this and get the kage. But first, we need to stop the Ichibi!"

Coincidentally, just as he said that, metric tons of sand pooled out of the alleyways and over rooftops. This sand wasn't very volatile though, just sand that happened to be flowing.

Soon enough, a man floating on a cloud of gold came into view and landed in the general vicinity. One of his arms was supporting a red haired boy of whom was unconscious.

The fourth Kazekage eyed the shinobi around him and finally rested on Kakashi. "Kakashi of the Sharingan, you were the one who took out the Nanabi, correct?"

Kakashi rubbed the back of his head embarrassedly. "Actually, it was my adorable little student who organized the effort."

The fourth Kazekage eyed the blond genin with the bare torso for a few seconds before directing his gaze back to Kakashi. "Whatever the case, I need to reestablish contact with the other kage. The fighting is too chaotic for me to give the fall back signal. I need the combined efforts of the rest of the leaders to stop this."

"Oi Naruto." A voice called out from the rooftops. A girl with platinum blond hair jumped across the rooftops and eventually landed in the general vicinity of where Chomei was taken out as well. On her back was the child-like form of Yagura, the Mizukage. He was unconscious and reeked of seawater. "We got Yagura." She called out excitedly with a little bit of exhaustion.

"Where's Shikamaru?" he asked.

"Taking a nap. He was pretty tired from possessing Yagura for so long." She hefted the man off her back and laid him down next to Fu.

The next interruption took the form of a house sized toad crushing a nearby residence with double tantos out. On the top of the head was Jiraiya in the process of writing furiously inside a very large scroll.

Eyeing the prone forms of Fu and Yagura, he sighed explosively and unwound the scroll back into itself. "Looks like I won't be needing this now." He said under his breath.

Naruto took out some smelling salts from within his pouch and wafted them under the nose of Yagura. His eyes shot open as he jumped into a fighting stance.

The fourth Kazekage drifted over to him. "We need to go find the Hokage, Raikage, and Tsuchikage if we want even a chance at getting our forces out of here alive."

Yagura, still having a lot of adrenaline in his system, took in large quantities of air before finally nodding. "Where's Ai?" He asked.

Just as he said that, the Raikage himself made his way there in a flash of lightening. He looked haggard if nothing else. On top of his shoulder was a bound Third Raikage who was locked in rigor mortis. Wrapped around the dead man were symbols and kanji, signifying he'd been sealed away.

Ai let the man fall to the ground as he stiffly walked over to the two other kage. "I've been looking for you two." He said breathlessly. "There's trouble afoot. I've got infiltrators in my forces creating mayhem."

"That just leaves the Tsuchikage and the Hokage."

Something that looked like a meteor zipped by overhead. Everyone ducked and braced themselves for the impact that would never come.

Slowly, the meteor came back and floated over everyone menacingly. It lighted on the ground and out hopped three Iwa shinobi. One was Akatsuchi, another was Kitsuchi, and the last one was Onoki. In one of his hands was the bound form of the second Tsuchikage being effortlessly held with the help of his gravity defying powers.

"Where's Hiruzen?" he asked sternly.

There was no sudden appearance of the leader of Konoha. Everyone looked around, expecting some sort of miracle flash of monkeys and leadership to come out of nowhere.

None came.

Onoki held his chin in his hands. "Last I saw him, he was battling with the first and second Hokages. He could be in danger." He huffed momentarily in amusement. "Didn't think I'd ever be saying this, but we need to save the Hokage."

There were sudden tree spurts all around the city, meaning the fight between Hokages had been progressing all around Konoha before it stopped.

"Everyone below jonin level, stay here and try to stop the chaos as much as possible." The fourth Kazekage said in his leader voice, setting Gaara down next to Fu. "Everyone jonin and above, spread out and try to find where the hokage was, and or where his body is."

With that said, there were nods of agreement by the other kage and everyone all spread out to do their own part. Everyone other than Naruto and the rest of the participating genin.

After busily throwing the fifteen base stat points he got from leveling up from Chomei into speed, Naruto tucked the book in his pants and unholstered his bo staff from a belt loop.

Shikamaru, back from his powernap, had a pretty good idea as to what Naruto was thinking, so he stopped the shirtless blond by grabbing a hold of his shoulder. "Don't do it Naruto."

"I have to save him." Naruto said resolutely.

"Whatever is keeping the Hokage from meeting us here is probably a lot stronger than you are. If you go, you're probably going to die."

Naruto directed a cold gaze to the Nara. "And what if I don't go, huh? I got this power for a reason. I've been leveling up like crazy and I'm a loads stronger than I was this morning. I know you see this game thing as a curse, but to me, it's like someone telling me to do what I can with this cool new power. What good am I if I can't even protect the people I love?"

Shikamaru didn't have an answer for Naruto.

Naruto nodded his way and his facial features softened. "Don't worry, I'm going to fine. After this, we're going to find this Tobi guy and get him to tell us why he did this to us."

Shikamaru smirked. "Why he did this to _us_? I'm still wondering why _you_ did this to _me_."

Naruto smiled. "I thought I told you this before. It's because I'm an asshole." After saying that, Naruto shot off to the Hokage monument with as much haste as he had.

Shikamaru smirked and clicked his tongue. "That's Naruto for you."

00000000

About 5 minutes later.

Naruto was staring at an intimidating sight.

Not intimidating in the sense of a giant hellcat that knew you were as much a threat as an ant was sitting right in front of him. Not intimidating in the sense that he was preparing to stop a giant snake using only his hands. Not even intimidating in the sense that he'd been caught peeking at a hotsprings (not that he'd ever do something like that) and was about to suffer divine retribution.

Regardless, it was still intimidating to look into the eyes of what looked like an ogre with a bad hair problem as it began to assess whether or not to rip you limb from limb.

Jirobo, not that Naruto knew that was his name, had his level two curse seal activated and was breathing heavily. He was wearing the shreds of what used to be a Konoha chunin fatigue, but it had been sliced and burned to smithereens, leaving only his red, wart encrusted skin to be shown.

Deciding that killing Naruto was a good idea, he roared and ran wildly at the blond.

Naruto brought his bo staff out, extended the double scythe blades, and whipped it towards the enraged Sound four operative all in one smooth motion.

Jirobo didn't really care for that, so he blocked the blade with his forearm and punched Naruto in the chest, cracking a few ribs and sending him careening into a concrete wall where he stayed, stunned and shocked.

Naruto groaned pitifully and ignited the mystic palm technique to soothe his aching chest.

Jirobo didn't even feel the need to finish off the blond. In fact, he was actually kind of affronted that he thought Naruto'd actually be a threat. In his mind, his intuition towards those kinds of things was starting to get dulled.

He didn't see Naruto take out his guidebook and flip to the merit section, mutter under his breath a little about how 'lazy Naras don't know anything', and tap a few options available to him. He definitely didn't see Naruto's irises turn a blood red with three tomoes floating around the pupils, nor was he cognizant of the veins beginning to bulge around his eyes.

So it was a bit of a surprise to him when Naruto not only got back up, but stared him down with some of the weirdest, most intimidating eyes he had ever seen in his life.

Naruto held out his bo staff and undid the blades, letting them sink back into their places, and turning it back into a regular bo staff.

He began to walk in the direction of the red brute with an evil looking smile on his face. Everything looked so clear to him now that he had the Sharingan. He could see the agitation in the chakra of his opponent. He could see the shock register by way of his muscles tightening by a minuscule amount in his neck.

Oh, this was going to fun for him.

Jirobo charged at Naruto again and was met with limited success in the way of actually touching him, much less hurting him.

Every punch he threw, every kick he launched, every grab he attempted, the little blond would just flow around him like water would around a rock. All through it, he was grinning like a maniac.

At the end of it all, Jirobo roared angrily at him and sent both his fists crashing down. Naruto jumped away just in the nick of time and twirled the bo staff downwards repeatedly, hitting Jirobo in the back of the head multiple times in the span of one second.

He growled and threw his body forward, hoping to tackle Naruto while his guard was down. Naruto only had to sidestep the hulking brute and whip him across the temple with the staff.

Stunned, Jirobo tried to get up, but felt his muscles lock up just as he began to do so. He could feel a pressure in and around his neck, though he didn't know what that meant. If he had a mirror on him, he'd see senbon pointing out at key points in his spine and neck, hitting all the important nerves controlling movement and blood flow.

Though he didn't mean to do it, Naruto condemned the man to death by way of circulatory shut down.

Naturally, he didn't know this and grinned at the blood at the ends of his staff, marveling at the power up he'd received from the dojutsu prowess.

When he was done appreciating his awesomeness, he reholstered the bo staff in his belt loop and turned his attention to the giant monument ahead of him.

The way Naruto saw it, his grandpa figure was probably getting slowed down by Orochimaru, who had already messed up the exams in the second stage. He knew that Orochimaru was a cheap bastard, so he also knew that Orochimaru would probably go after the non-combatants first. Sarutobi, being the awesome and just Hokage he was, would do all he could to save them.

With a burst of speed, he climbed his way all up the walls and up to the entrance to the series of caves that led to where all the civilians would be at. He had a grin on his face, envisioning being there to save the Third. Naruto knew if he did that, Sarutobi would probably give him the hat on the spot.

But to do that, first he'd have to beat Orochimaru with the awesome new powers he got.

Only he didn't.

The first thing he saw when he got to the entrance was Hiruzen's corpse falling off the blade of the Kusanagi. His torso had a couple arrows in it and there was a detached red horn jutting out of his thigh. On the ground beside him was the dead body of one of the Sound four Sakon and Ukon twins and the detached head of a spider-man-thing.

Orochimaru, the man holding the blade that had momentarily been within the Third Hokage of the proud Village Hidden in the Leaves, smiled and chuckled heartedly at seeing his former teacher in such a state.

Naruto didn't really know what happened next. One moment, he was standing there, contemplating whether or not what his eyes were telling him were true, and the next, he was holding onto Orochimaru's arm.

It was splurting blood from the shoulder. In its hand, the Kusanagi was still being held tightly.

Naruto had torn the arm from Orochimaru's body and he didn't even remember doing it. He felt… weird. Airy. Like he was lighter than he used to be. Even though his back was turned, he could still see Orochimaru's still body because of the byakugan enhancing his vision.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he turned and faced the man. Orochimaru was grinning. He looked maniacal. Utterly and completely happy with how the situation played out even with blood continuously spurting from the lost limb.

One of Naruto's hands gripped his bo staff while the other held on tight to the man's detached limb. God help him, he was going to bludgeon the savage man to death with his own limb.

Naruto roared a hideous, soul-rending roar. One that told of confusion and devastation. One that held the sorrow of mankind within it.

His already blood-red eyes went savage. The circular pupils turned into slits and he could feel the whisker marks on his cheeks lengthening and growing more and more sensitive to the air. His nose scrunched up. He could smell the hatred and blood and fear emanating from Sarutobi's corpse.

The red chakra that was boiling under his skin surfaced through the pores all over his body. It coalesced into the rough form of a fox with two tails lazily floating back and forth.

"Kukuku. To think I'd see such an interesting sight today." Orochimaru chuckled out, happy as could be.

"**I'll kill you."**

"I'm sure you'll try."

In a flash of red and anger, Naruto vanished and reappeared by Orochimaru's side. The blades on his bo staff swung out and were flung at the snake man. Orochimaru brought a hand forward and allowed it to impale his palm all the way up to the hilt, where it suddenly stopped. Naruto swung the limb still in his grasp at the devlish man, only for a snake to fly out of his esophagus and grab a hold of the sword clutched in his detached hand.

Naruto's vision went red as he dove forward and took Orochimaru's throat in his teeth. With a great tearing motion, Naruto tore out the throat of the Sannin.

He fell to the ground, blood leaking out of his windpipe and spewing life liquid all over his own face and clothes. Naruto gasped and spluttered with anger. A second roar of despair emanated from his throat at the unfairness of it all.

The roar was cut short, however, when another Orochimaru rose from the mouth of the old one and latched his teeth into the area where Naruto's collarbone and neck met. Hot, liquid metal pain spread into Naruto like wildfire and he ceased his movements.

Orochimaru stood over the downed Naruto. "Don't you feel just so powerless? You can't even protect the people you love with your strength. When the time comes and you feel the need for power, come to me. I'll give you enough to rival the most powerful of them all."

Naruto felt the strength to hold on to consciousness for seconds longer, if only to respond to the politely phrased question with a retort of his own. **"Burn in hell, cocksuck."**

The last thing he saw before oblivion took him was Orochimaru's smiling, repulsive face.

**AN/ Hello, gent here. How's it hanging?**

**Don't worry, I'll do some more with Neji. Don't worry, if you know my writing style, then you know that I make strength fair. If Naruto has the sharingan and the byakugan, then don't assume that automatically makes him god-like. Don't worry, Bravely default is still quality despite it being co-produced by Sqenix.**

'**gasp'. Where's Anko?**

**What happened to the invasion?**

**How will the genin react to the fact that Naruto's a Jinchuuriki?**

**Will he get the promotion?**

**Truthfully, I don't know. Still wondering the pairing of the story is to be honest.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**

**Oh yeah, shout out to darkcloudalpha for mentioning my story in his story. Go check out his videogame! Naruto story. It's pretty damn good.**


	20. a strange, concurrent series of events

Chapter 20

Naruto awoke to the sight of blackness and the sound of muffled breathing.

He sat upright and took in his surrounding first and foremost. He was sitting in a comfortable bed that felt like it had never been slept in before. It also felt plain. Just a single flattish pillow and a thin sheet covering him. Naruto felt all over his body and grasped at the clothes he was wearing. It was a one piece tunic that he could feel go all the way down to his thighs. Under that, there was nothing.

Naruto felt around at his eyes. They were covered with a thick layer of gauze and tape.

He took a moment to calm his breathing and gently, ever so gently, began peeling at the cloth covering his eyes.

With every successive layer of cloth removed from his face, he could see more and more light shine through the bandages. Eventually it got to the point where it was too bright to unwrap anymore. He could even feel a few more layers under that.

Deciding to not damage his eyes any more than they already apparently were, he stopped unwrapping the bandages and felt around his bed.

Deciding on the thick stench of death, sterilization, and heavy perfumed scents, Naruto came to the conclusion that he must be in the hospital. Any good hospital had to have some sort of 'call' function for nurses.

At his right hand side, there was a box that had a wire presumably go into the bed somewhere. On it were two buttons. He didn't know which one to press, so he just clicked on both.

Waiting for whatever the button did to happen, he leaned back to the wall and directed his head around the room. Based on where he directed his face, he could hear different things. When it was directed to the left and up a little, there were quiet moans and groans of suffering. He didn't like that all too much, so directed his head to the right, then pointed it downwards. There was sluggish snoring and a light, whimpering sort of breath.

"Kashikoi?" Naruto whispered.

The whimpering stopped. He could almost see (In a metaphysical sense, not visual eyesight sense) Kashikoi perk her head up and look in his direction.

"Kashikoi? Is that you?" He whispered out some more.

The sounds of paws quickly padding against linoleum assaulted his ears, which were very sensitive in the room almost devoid of sound. The padding sound stopped and he could feel Kashikoi paw up his legs, onto his lap, and get up on her hind legs to try her best to cover Naruto in fox spit. He chuckled and rubbed her ears affectionately, making kissing noises and burying his face in her felt.

God, foxes have the softest fur.

For a very long time he stayed like that, playing with and rubbing Kashikoi all over his face and body. It got to the point where he was wondering whether or not to press the buttons again when the sliding door opened and he heard a drained presence enter the room he was in.

It was female, middle-aged, and very very tired. Tracking her movement using his ears, he could tell that she stopped directly in front of his bed and picked something up to read. Probably the clipboard that held his credentials and medical information. "Uzumaki-san." She said in a soft, tired voice. "Is there something wrong? Something that I can help you with?"

"Oh, uhmm… I'm just… confused I guess. Why do my eyes hurt? I can't be blind, can I?" Naruto asked as calmly as he could.

She sighed softly. "Do you remember how you passed out?"

Naruto went silent. "I-I was… fighting Orochimaru because…" Naruto trailed off for a second. "Is Gramps really dead?" His voice broke at the end.

He could hear her as she tried to come up with a euphemistic way of saying his grandfather figure was brutally killed.

Murdered.

"The Hokage perished in the battle." She finally managed to say.

Naruto tried to say something, but words refused to exit his mouth. He paused. Waited. Didn't say anything until he gulped down the spikes of sadness in his throat. "W-Where am I?" Naruto finally asked.

"In the special ward of the hospital. There were a few of the higher ups that wanted you contained because of what happened to you, but we were assured by your sensei that you'd be okay in a regular bed."

Naruto felt his heart sink. That meant that the village knew about him, didn't it? Naruto almost freaked out at that information and began thinking up the worst case scenarios of anything that could happen to him. The Hyuuga might put the caged bird seal on his forehead. The emergency council could want to experiment on him to see why he suddenly had two of the village's most prestigious kekai genkai. Anko might hate him for lying to her. Shikamaru could get roped into this.

"W-What happened to me." He didn't mean it as a question. It mostly a self-reflective way of expressing the impact that the escalation of events were having on him. The nurse just answered it like a question though.

"So you don't remember the entirety of the events then? Well, I'm sorry that I'm the one that has to break the news to you, but before he left, Orochimaru of the Sannin put something everyone is calling a 'curse seal' on you. From what I'm told, it's untreatable and can be make you break out in immediate and debilitating pain at a moment's notice."

"Huh?"

"The… curse seal. I might be getting the name wrong-"

"No no, that's not what I meant… then, uhhh… what about my eyes?"

"Oh that? You were being inflicted with severe eye strain when you were found by one…" the nurse paused to check the clipboard. "Neji Hyuuga. We were forced to bind your eyes lest it get any worse. You shouldn't have any severe side-effects of this though."

The dark world Naruto had been living in only seconds before seemed just a little less bleak now that he knew no one knew of his double dojutsu. "Then uhh, what about the invasion? Is Konoha okay?"

The nurse sighed in exasperation. "Konoha is still standing, though all the world leaders are angry and don't know who to direct their anger to. Now if you don't feel any adverse effects of the seal afflicting you, then I must go. The hospital is horribly understaffed as it is."

"Wait!" Naruto scream/whispered to her, still mindful of the other sleeping inhabitant of the room. "Who's sleeping here?"

The nurse paused. "…He looks like someone of the Nara clan, though I don't know who specifically. He was out like a light before we could ask."

"Goddamn it. Shikamaru!"

Naruto heard the sounds of a person snorting awake abruptly. "Don't worry about him, he's just really tired all the time." Naruto said politely to the nurse.

While the nurse awkwardly vacated the room, Shikamaru walked stiffly over to where Naruto was and suddenly ripped the bandages from his face, creating instantaneous and horribly effective eye pain.

Naruto's hands covered his eyes and he almost fell to the floor from the convulsions. When he felt that his eyes were adjusted to the amount of light being filtered through a layer of skin and the small cracks in a tightly held together hand, he faced up and shouted "Goddamn it Shikamaru!"

"I'm the one who should be saying that." Shikamaru said with barely restrained anger. "You have got to be the luckiest person on the planet!"

Naruto was shocked into silence. "Thanks?"

"Nope. No. That was not a compliment. I'm saying you messed up big time and for some reason, you're still alive."

"Well isn't that just dandy? Why did you do that to me?"

"Get your eyes used to the light. You need to see something." Shikamaru murmured under his breath as he went back to his seat.

Naruto silently cursed out Shikamaru as he went through the painful process of getting his sore and unused eyes rehabilitated towards the light. When it got to the point where he was rapidly blinking to the open and unflinching air, Shikamaru took out something from inside his coat and threw it at Naruto.

He tried to catch it, but missed, causing it to fly past his hand and hit him square in the nose. Woefully rubbing the feeling back into his nose, Naruto picked the thing and looked at it with a surprised look. "The guidebook? Did new hardware come popping out?"

"Nope. I just want to draw your attention to the fact that you awoke two particularly effective dojutsu."

Naruto felt a chastising coming along. "Look, I couldn't waste my time with that fatass. Gramps was in trouble and I had to help!"

Shikamaru was silent for a small while. "You remember when I told you that you were lucky? Well here's why you're lucky: One, your eyes didn't change cosmetically, meaning they're the same blue they've always been. Two, the autopsy of the 'fatass' made it out that you tried to knock him out for some reason, but missed. A senbon was misplaced by a few millimeters and cut a significant artery. Three, no one saw the ByakuSharingan that you used. Four, your DNA doesn't look like it was changed at all. And Five, you can still see." He said those things with a venomous sharpness Naruto had never heard him use before.

"So? These are good things, right? Now I can do all the dojutsu stuff I want. Didn't you say you wanted to break the game? Having double dojutsu is really OP. isn't that a good thing?"

"Not if you're going to blind yourself while using it. You're also lucky in the fact that no one questioned your advanced eye strain with anything other than 'Oh, isn't that strange?'"

"I've got the luck of the devil. What are you so mad about?"

"Naruto… just how long did you have the ByakuSharingan on for?"

Naruto sat in thought for a while. "I don't know… two minutes."

"And in those two minutes, you nearly blinded yourself with the strain on your eyes."

"Then I won't do that again. I'll use either or."

"Despite that, it's going to cause you to drain through chakra at alarming rates. Do you know that when Neji found you, you were nearly depleted of chakra? You have more chakra than anyone I know and it went away in about two minutes because of those eyes."

Naruto put his chin in his hand. "Okay, so what you're saying is that I shouldn't have them both active at the same time because of the eye strain, I also shouldn't… use them with clones, because the clones will burn through their chakra a lot faster than if it was just me, and I also should be careful about who sees them?"

"Looks like your intelligence really is going up." Shikamaru brought another thing from out of his jacket and tossed it at Naruto. This time it landed on his lap. It was a pair of large-strapped tinted goggles. The strap was wide enough to where it would completely cover his temples and the sides of his eyes, and it was dark enough that no one could be able to see what his eyes looked like.

"Okay, so I'll only use either the Byakugan or the Sharingan when I really need to use them, and when I do, I put the goggles on."

"Correct."

Naruto bleated out a sigh of exasperation. "So tell me, what happened? Is everyone okay?"

Shikamaru walked to the back wall and grabbed a chair. It was heavy, so he just sort of dragged it over, screeching all the way on the hard linoleum floors. He sat down in it with a weighty 'thump'.

"Ino got hit in the thigh with a stray kunai, but she's fine and looks like she's not going to suffer any nerve damage. Chouji exhausted himself and had to use the first pill in order to escape the chaos. He's fine too. Hinata got up at some point and assisted the Hyuuga in putting down the chaos with Neji and her dad. Kiba and Kankuro spotted the infiltrators using Akamaru's senses to sniff out smells that didn't fit with the uniform. Shino helped out a lot with the Sanbi, but he lost a lot of his colony. Looks like he's under a self-imposed house arrest until he can breed it back up. You know how Lee and Gai helped you with the Nanabi. Other than a few bruises, they're fine. Karui, Omoi, and Samui were really good with spotting Kumo infiltrators. They're fine. Sakura and Temari didn't engage in the chaos. Fujitsu and Takkana were taken back to Taki and Fu's still asleep. Kurotsuchi made it unscathed and is at the arguments with the rest of the village leaders."

"Arguments?"

"Everyone is angry and no one knows who to be angry at. The death tally is being counted up. The military council is arguing over who should be the next Hokage. Looks like Jiraiya is de facto for now and is with the rest of the kages, who're all arguing over who should pay up for compensation. There's even talks of going to war with the Land of Rice Fields."

"Why would they do that?"

"Apparently Orochimaru is a shinobi village leader there. But the country itself is pretty poor. It would cost more to wage a month of war, than the spoils that the war would take could add up to."

"Okay… wait. What about Sasuke?"

Shikamaru nervously rubbed his elbow. "I don't know the details, but it looks like he went crazy at some point and awakened the curse seal on his neck. He's knocked out now. Though I don't know why or who he went crazy on."

"What about Anko-sensei? What happened to her? How bad is she hurt?"

Shikamaru gave Naruto a queer look. "How do you know she's injured? Were you there when it happened?"

"When what happened? If she's not here with me, then she's probably injured. Or at least… that's kind of what I think she'd do." He finished that sentence meekly.

"She's in intensive right now. When they found her, she was impaled to a wall by three arrows made of an unknown substance with dead snake summons surrounding her. The snake summons should have unspawned, but they stayed there for some reason."

The covers were off of Naruto as soon as he heard that. He was nearly to the door when Shikamaru put him in a shadow possession. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm going to go help." Naruto said simply.

"She's in intensive and surrounded by the best medics and surgeons. You're only going to be something that could endanger her life by being there."

Naruto's muscles struggled against the shadows to no avail. Even if he did feel strong and fine, the shadow felt strangely solid and sturdy. He couldn't move at all. "Well I have to do something. I have to help somehow."

"You can help by not helping." Shikamaru released his control over Naruto's muscles which allowed him to walk dejectedly back to his bed.

"So what now?" Naruto asked sourly. "The village is crumbling. Some of our friends are hurt. The world's about to go to war. And I can't really use my ByakuSharingan thingy."

It was at this point that Shikamaru pointed to a corner in the room that Naruto's eyes had yet to explore. There was a small sack with irregularly angular bulges. "Just how big is your empire right about now?"

"I've got… a majority shares in a textile factory in the Land of Flowers. I've bought a small cotton field, and the rights to all the wool made from a particular farm. Not only that, but I usually have clones working around the clock to make blankets, sheets, anything that is easily made and mass-produced. Turns out the silk farms are really expensive, so I'm not able to get into the Sand market yet. I don't… I don't know if Hachiman or the store is alright. I should go check." Naruto promptly made a clone (still in only a hospital smock, mind you), and had it go check up on the village a bit. "Why do you need to know anyway? I thought you didn't like me building an empire."

"Really, I just didn't know why you were doing what you were doing. I didn't care about the fact that you were doing it at all. But now… now we can use this to our advantage."

"How so?"

"Mass civilian unrest. Lots of residences destroyed. Rampant confusion. You know, the decisions that a country or a village makes is dependent on the civilian population. If we can placate everyone, then there might be less aggravation."

"How can we do that? Like, I get we could sell blankets cheaply, but other than that…"

"And I thought you were good at coming up with versatile uses for things." Shikamaru said cheekily, cracking a rare smile. "Blankets can be used for a lot of things. Comfortable bedding, shade from the sun, clothing, warmth, shelter."

"So… what you're saying… is we start charity work. Give out blankets, set up temporary tent cities, give clothing… that sort of thing?"

"Bingo." Shikamaru walked over to the bag and took out the binder for the property management and the stock market. "You make a bunch of clones and get them to making large sheets that could make for temporary shade against the sun. Since it's high summer, that is more important than bedding, but just to make sure, have some of those made as well. If you can, make some clothes, though if it takes too long, it might be more effective to just focus on the sheets. Do you have enough textiles to work?"

"Shipment just came a few days before the attack. I kept the brunt of it all at a storage facility outside of the village. It should still be there."

"That's good. Though if we're doing charity, then we're not making money. Can you afford that?"

"I buy cheap cotton and wool because I own the rights to those places, then I ship them off to be made cheaply into textiles. So long as you keep making money on the market, this could be self-sustaining."

Shikamaru grinned. "Helping thousands of displaced people is a lot more help than hindering a surgery room, isn't it?"

Naruto had to begrudgingly agree.

Begrudgingly.

00000000

During that time, coincidentally enough, Anko was dreaming.

Dreaming being a loosely used term here.

It started out strange and just got weirder from there.

She didn't know when she could have classified the beginning of the dream, because all the scenes were all happening together and she was forced to rebuild the misshapen and malformed pieces of the puzzles if she had any hope of making any sense of it.

Though she didn't remember a beginning, she did remember that the first scene had to have been when she couldn't hear anything being said. She was stood in front of her student. She didn't remember any of the scenery, the time, the setting, because she was solely focused on him and only him.

He was fidgety and nervous, she could tell. He had just gotten over crying if the red around his eyes and the tear stains were of any indication. He wasn't in his shinobi wear. Not that he ever commanded a sort of intimidating presence, or anything that would make people automatically look at him and assume he knew what he was doing, but Anko did know that Naruto was always self-confidence and a certain dignity about him.

He didn't look like that. Utterly broken down. Absolutely no idea what was happening. Looked like he was standing on the edge of death and that veneer of confidence had finally shattered.

She remembered talking to him, but not what she was saying. Her ears weren't working after all. The only thing she was cognizant was of the buzzing vibrations of sounds within her cheeks, her tongue, her mouth as it moved.

Now if there was one thing she would take away from the dream, to make sure that she would remember no matter what it took to do so, it would be the things he said next. Not that she could hear what he said, but for some reason, she was utterly and completely enthralled by how he said it.

Three words.

Those three words spoken with those tears and redness and sadness and weakness and fragility. Oh what she would have done if only she could have heard those three spoken words.

Oh if only that.

The next part she remembered much the same way. No setting. No sounds. Only him and her again.

This time, though, it was different. He was older, more mature, muscular, a few scars here and there. He had a rugged handsomeness about him. For some reason, her cheeks were on fire. She had trouble gulping down the saliva being made in her mouth. She felt strange, fidgety, unreasonably energetic, yet unable to do anything with that energy lest she do something terrible.

Something she'd regret with all her being.

Again, she was talking with no idea what she was saying. He didn't seem at all affected by these words. In fact, he was very professional. Like he was hearing a debriefing from a mission assignment, though she knew with her entire body that that wasn't what she was talking about.

She was talking about something emotional, primal, a thing that any normal person's cheeks would turn a bright vermillion upon hearing. Only, he didn't. He was the epitome of a calm collectiveness.

This unnerved her. Her mouth stopped moving like it should have. She began spluttering in her attempted communication, saliva beginning to cover his chest and face. He didn't so much as flinch.

Slowly, he turned away from her and began walking away. She wanted to chase after him. To hug him. To kiss him. To comfort him. To fuck him. To sleep with him. To carry his child. To marry him. To date him. To teach him. To be taught by him. To do all the things that were denied her.

But she was denied again.

That last scene was what disturbed her the most out of all of them.

She could hear again, though she didn't know what he was saying. It all sounded like a compressed gibberish as he viciously and vigorously stabbed her in the chest again and again.

She made no move to stop him even though she knew she could.

She knew she was laying on the ground as the hot piece of iron repeatedly entered and exited her body. Blood spewing through the holes as if there was a pressure hose of blood hooked up to her body.

It hurt. It hurt so bad that she wanted to stop him and cry and shout and scream and do anything other than lay there, letting it happen.

She couldn't see his body, but his face had more maturity to it. It was at that point that she knew that he was completely and without a doubt a man, neither boy, nor teenager.

It was also at that point that she could feel the sheer hatred in his stabs and grunts and moans of ecstasy and deep emotional pain.

Through the gibberish and saliva that spewed forth from his mouth, she could hear the words being repeated over and over and over and over and over and over again.

"You killed her."

"I hate you."

Though she only wanted to gasp and shock and scream in the pain that she knew on a base level, she deserved, she didn't. With a grim countenance, she picked her arm up in the air. Her skin was darkened with blood, but through the areas where the life liquid was absent, her skin was a porcelain white.

Pasty.

Disgusting.

Horribly.

White.

She was suddenly aware of the fact that she had long, black hair and that her tongue was longer than fifty feet and that her eyes were yellow with slits and that she was smiling.

Finally, he stopped, stood up, and walked away.

No, he wasn't walking away. He wasn't moving.

She was moving in the opposite direction by an unknown force as a brilliant white light enveloped her entire being.

She was comfortable and safe and the pain was gone and she wasn't worried and she was happy.

For a few blissful seconds, she felt genuinely happy for the first time in a long time.

In the back of her head, she knew it was undeserved. Selfish even, to have such a great thing be hosted upon her.

So she stopped.

She grasped a hold of Naruto's leg. It only appeared there when she wanted to grab it, hold onto it, and make it into a lifeline, a thing that kept the whiteness away.

He turned his head and looked down on her. It was a disgusted face. It tore at her heart to see it directed at her with such malice.

Then he knelt down and took a hold of her hand. He was gentle, kind even. He lifted her up and brushed the dirt off her trench coat.

For a reason she couldn't explain, she played with her purplish gray hair and touched her normal sized tongue and looked into the eyes of her student to verify that her eyes were the same as they always were.

She could feel the tugging on her back, enticing her, drawing her to the land of light and happiness.

But she didn't go. She held on to his hand. He leaned down close to her ear and whispered three words. Three words that she wanted to remember, but couldn't.

"I love you."

Then he was gone.

Then she heard voices.

Then she heard a steady beeping.

Then she woke up.

Then she felt.

Then she felt pain.

00000000

"Could I have a few seconds with him… alone?"

Shikamaru gave Tenten, who was in the doorway a look, then gave Naruto, who was in the bed, a look. He stood up with nary a fuss and walked outside with the binder in his hands.

She leaned to the side to allow him to exit the white stained room and fidgeted her way in.

"What's wrong Tenten?" Naruto asked with an innocent, concerned expression.

She began playing with her fingers, twiddling her thumbs, lacing the long appendages together into knots and pulling with a nervousness unknown to a person of happiness such as Tenten.

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, wanting to speak, but her body not letting her to do it.

"Tenten, what's wrong?" Naruto said with a bit more concern and forcefulness. "You can tell me anything, you know."

"I-I can't… I can't be with you anymore."

Naruto blinked.

Then he blinked again.

"A-Are you breaking up with me?"

"Look, Naruto… a lot of things are going on right now and I don't think I can be with you right now." Her face was in turmoil. It was scrunched up in a way that was unbefitting of a fourteen year old.

"Uhmm… okay." Naruto said simply.

Her facial expression alleviated somewhat. "Really?" She asked quietly.

"Well what am I going to do? Refuse?" Naruto said humorously. "If we can't be together because you don't want to, then that's fine."

The scrunches went away. There was even the beginning of a smile on her face. "A-Are you sure you're not… disappointed, unhappy?"

"Well…" It was Naruto's time for nervous embarrassment. "I still like you. But if you only want to be friends, then I guess I'm okay with that."

She changed her standing position a few times, unsure of what to do now that she'd formally ended her 'romantic' relationship with one Naruto Uzumaki, until he patted the chair next to him with a 'come hither' expression on his face. "Come on. If we're going to be friends, then you're going to tell me what's bothering you."

She smiled and almost did that, though was stopped when another person was wheeled into the doorway by a few nurses. He had dusty red hair, rings around his eyes, and turquoise irises.

He was Gaara no Sabaku, Jinchuuriki of the Ichibi no Tanuki.

"We're sorry, all the other special ward rooms were taken and since you were both deemed low risk, we decided to put you together." One of the nurses said.

They wheeled him opposite Naruto and hooked him up to the machine. Those cold eyes didn't so much as fidget when they stared Naruto for the entirety of the process.

"Uhm… we'll talk another time." Tenten said slowly. She gave him a sad sort of smile and left the room with the nurses.

Naruto was thusly alone with Gaara, who was boring a hole into his head.

00000000

Jiraiya hummed a jaunty little tune. In his hand was the specially made Special Jonin flak jacket. He heard the reports of the chunin exams. Naruto held a charisma and a bold stratagem for rounding up shinobi of all nationalities and getting them to work towards a common goal.

A born leader.

Though he was still weak. There was no jonin alive or dead that would ever lose to Naruto. Shadow clones and giant toads or not, Naruto lacked skill, experience, and combat expertise that came with the promotion to jonin.

But since he showed a shockingly prodigious ability to lead, Naruto was given a promotion to Special Jonin, the position given to people who had ability in a certain field that was above and beyond what chunin had, yet wasn't as capable combat-wise as jonin were.

Jiraiya couldn't wait to see the happy look on that kid's face as he gave him the flak jacket and told him he was just that closer to Hokage.

After a long day of argumentative bullshit, this was something he sorely needed right then. He hadn't even been able to properly grieve for his dead sensei yet. The luminescent lights were somehow incapable of hiding the fact that it was night outside, even though there were no windows on that floor and that the lighting hadn't changed, there was something there that reminded Jiraiya the fact that the day had ended.

He opened the door to Naruto's room with a happy look on his face.

The jacket hit the floor and Jiraiya flew to the bed.

Leaning on it, breathless and in a panicked state, was Anko Mitarashi. Her hospital smock was improperly closed, giving him a sight of her bare chest and the huge gaping scars situated around her torso. The curse seal was glowing a bright red against her skin and was threatening to break out of the seal keeping it down.

She began retching on the bed, a green bile being forcefully expelled from her expiring body. The blankets were ruffled, meaning someone had been sitting there until just recently.

Jiraiya pushed on the nurse button frantically and carried Anko into a nearby unoccupied bed. She was nearly at the state of convulsions when Jiraiya managed to hold her down and clip her to the machine.

The heartbeat monitor went crazy with beeping, creating a piercing sound reverberating in his skull. "Calm down Anko!" He said frantically. "Please, you have to calm down. What's wrong? Where's Naruto?"

"He was taken."

Jiraiya whirled around and was met with the cold, unflinching eyes of Naruto's, until then, roommate.

"What do you mean?" Jiraiya's face went into a snarl and he ran to the bed of Gaara.

"I mean, he was taken by men and they escaped through the window." The boy said succinctly and clearly. "That woman barged in after that and began freaking out. Then you came."

"What did these men look like? Any distinguishing characteristics?"

"Yes. They had white, blank masks."

Jiraiya felt his gut sink into his groin at those six uttered words.

**AN/ intrigue.**

**Read and review**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	21. a change in perspective

Chapter 21

About thirty minutes prior to Jiraiya's coming.

Gaara stared at the blond for an uncomfortably long amount of time. For all his deductive reasoning, he couldn't figure him out in the slightest. "You…" Gaara started out, bringing out a fearful and somewhat curious expression unto the face of the Uzumaki being addressed. "Are a Jinchuuriki."

Naruto nodded, shifting his gaze from side to side unsurely. "Yeah. Wait… you were freaking out when I told everyone about that. How do you know?"

"I was told by Temari." Gaara stated.

Naruto sighed into his palm exasperatedly. "I should have told everyone not to repeat that." He mumbled to himself.

"I am also a Jinchuuriki." Gaara stated.

"You don't say?" Naruto said with a huff of laughter. "Anyway, what's wrong? Why do you care whether or not I'm a Jinchuuriki?"

Gaara averted his eyes away from Naruto to the linoleum floors. "Because I need to know." He said intensely. "I need to know how you are able to be so… so… unaffected."

Naruto quirked a brow. "What should I be affected by?"

Gaara clutched at his head. His pupils were dilating and veins were popping up everywhere on his face. "The whispers." Gaara choked out. "How do you remain so sane when mother wishes for blood? How are you able to block out the voices, the hate?"

Naruto looked taken aback. "Woah woah woah. I think you need to see someone. Like a therapist or something."

Gaara's eyes shot to Naruto. "Y-You mean… you can't hear the whispers?"

"There's nobody talking to me inside my head."

"**How insulting. Have you forgotten about me so readily?"**

"Shut up Kyuubi." Naruto mumbled to the side, prompting Gaara to look up to him with a hopeful gaze on his face. Before the Sand genin could say anything, however, Naruto put forth a statement. "Okay, so I'm not so alone in my head, but I don't have a 'mother' asking for blood, or any whispers. Just a bastard fox that doesn't like me."

Gaara looked hurt. As if he was affronted personally and psychologically by this information. He clutched at his temples and forehead furiously. His pupils began wobbling. Red cracks in the whites of his eyes became more pronounced. He reached an arm forward and made grasping gestures at Naruto, though nothing happened. "Mother wants you blood." Gaara rasped out.

Although this did freak Naruto out something awful, he wasn't going to call the nurse in just yet. There were more important things to handle than a psychologically impaired Jinchuuriki with bloodlust.

Okay, so maybe Naruto might have been underestimating the hurt and rage and sorrow building up within Gaara, but he seemed harmless. He only made grasping motions and choked sounds.

Eventually, he gave up and took in great amounts of air. His arms flopped to the sides and his back fell against the pillow.

For some reason, he looked different to Naruto. He always looked like such a short, infantile kid with that giant sand gourd on his back, but now that it was gone, he looked like just another normal kid with mental issues.

Gaara began cursing to himself silently. "Why did father have to take away the sand? Mother said she would always protect me with the sand. Why is it gone? What have I done wrong? Why do you call still for blood?"

Naruto couldn't handle the situation any longer. He put the sleepy Kashikoi, who had been resting on his chest until then, onto the bed, got up, and walked straight up to the Sand genin, then produced a fist for a bumping. Gaara stared at the gesture for several seconds. His eyes darted up to Naruto, then back to the fist. He didn't know what to do with this new stimulus.

"You bump it." Naruto clarified.

"W-With what?"

"With your own fist, dumbass."

"B-but mother. The blood-"

"If you bump fists with me for like… five minutes, then I'll give you all the blood you want." Naruto said enticingly.

Gaara stared longingly at the skin on Naruto's knuckles and eventually produced his own fist, then pushed it forward and allowed his skin to tap Naruto's.

Suddenly, he wasn't in the hospital anymore. He was in a big room, staring at Naruto and the enormous cage behind him. Piercing red eyes peered through the gates behind him.

Gaara slowly turned around to see the star-shaped pupils of his own bijuu. There was ungodly, beastly, demonic laughter resounding from all around him. He crouched to the ground and covered his ears, tried to block out the horrid, screeching laughter.

"**Shukaku. I didn't think I'd ever have to see your ugly face ever again."** A deep, resounding voice said from behind Naruto.

"**Hehehe. You goddamn fox. Why are you here? Leave before I kill you."**

"**What's so funny you psychotic tanuki? You couldn't put a scratch on me even if I let you."**

Sand washed through the cracks of the seal Shukaku was placed behind. It moved on its own accord and parted around Gaara like a swarm of anchovies avoiding a predator. Naruto took a few steps backwards and fell on his ass. The sand washed over and around him. He was left dumb and shocked at the sight of the sand moving in that way.

The Kyuubi groaned in annoyance and exasperation. **"You think your sand is going to hurt me? I'm the Nine-tailed demon fox. You're a thousand years too early to even think of coming up to me."**

Shukaku ground his teeth and jaw together. He was getting riled up even more than he usually did. **"See, that's the reason every single one of us hates you. You're an arrogant brute who thinks you're so much better than us because of the number of your tails."**

The Kyuubi smirked. **"That's because I am so much better than you. You're so much weaker than me, it's like swatting a fly away whenever you want to fight."**

Shukaku looked like he was about to on a diatribe about Kyuubi being an ass, but was stopped short when Naruto suddenly stood up and shouted with all his might at the giant Ichibi construct. "OOOIII! I didn't come here to hear you two shout at each other! I came to talk!"

Shukaku glanced downwards at Naruto. A booming laughter came from his throat. **"Hehehehe. You're pathetic Kyuubi. Have you even made an effort at getting out of your cage? Or has your generations stuck inside petulant humans tamed you? Oh Matatabi and Son are going to get a kick out of this."**

Before Kyuubi could retort in a most loud and unstable manner, Naruto shouted up at the Ichibi again. "Are you deaf!? Stop being such a dick and listen to me!"

"**See, this is what I hate about humans."** Shukaku said, completely ignoring the blond. **"They demand attention even if they don't deserve it. They believe them to be our superiors when almost every single one of them wouldn't pose more a challenge then a passing sparrow that might accidentally perch on us."**

"Holy shit." Naruto said very audibly. "Would you shut up for one second? We're not here to discuss how much of assholes we humans are! We're here to talk about you!" Naruto shouted, pointing at the Ichibi.

"**Your container has balls, I'll give him that much. Okay, insect, what do you want?"** Shukaku asked in an uppity tone.

"I want to know why you're 'whispering' to Gaara for blood. That's really weird!"

Shukaku grunted in disgust at Naruto. **"Why do you think? I've been trapped in either a cage, or a kettle for hundreds of years. I want to be free. I want to roam the deserts. I want to do as I please and I can't do that in here. Unlike your pet behind you,"** There was dangerous growling coming from Naruto's side. **"I'm making an effort to get out of here."**

"How? By driving Gaara crazy? Look at what you did to him." Naruto said, pointing Gaara, who was still in fetal position. "You're making him go psycho!"

Shukaku tapped the bars holding him away from Gaara. **"That's the idea, insect."**

Naruto nodded in an assuring manner. "You are so getting muted."

Shukaku paused. **"What?"**

"I'm going to mute you."

"…**What?"**

Naruto walked up to Gaara and reached a hand out to him. "Let's get out of here. I need to check up on something."

Gaara stared at that hand for the longest of times. Nobody ever tried to touch him. Nobody ever tried to help him. He was alone in this world with nothing but whispers of blood and death by his side. Naruto tired of waiting for Gaara to take hold of the hand for himself, so he reached even further downwards and took it in his hand by force. "Come on, I think I can help you with that problem of yours."

Gaara blinked, then he wasn't in the large room anymore. He was back in the hospital with none other than Naruto Uzumaki.

Naruto looked Gaara up and down a few times. "Where's your seal?"

Gaara tried to answer, but the words got caught up in his throat.

Naruto made cyclical hand gestures. "You know… the thing that keeps that bastard sealed up inside of you."

Gaara silently and slowly tucked his head out of the hospital smock and drifted a hand to where his abdomen and sternum met. A black sealing array popped up and spread around to about a foot in diameter.

Naruto clicked his tongue and stared at the symbols and effects moving and interacting with each other. Luckily for him, Jiraiya mostly taught him about the sealing aspects of sealing. Suffice to say, there was a lot that could be done with sealing. Things like the creation of undetectable proximity mines, the creation of barriers that could keep people out, or just eviscerate anything that came by, things that could dampen sound vibrations, things that could explode on command. But Jiraiya was mostly vested in the sealing and summoning aspects of sealing. So Naruto was taught some basic 'sealing' seals. Like storage seals and other such things.

Really, all bijuu seals were based on the same design of the kunai storage seal, though a fuck ton more complicated. It looked as though the person who made the Ichibi seal only knew what they were doing to a certain extent, not taking in all the parameters and situations that could happen based on the seal they made.

What Naruto was trying to do didn't really require the in-depth knowledge of all the bells and whistles of Gaara's seal, just a good spot to make a little add-on. He wasn't redesigning the wheel, he was just adding a spoke.

Using a chakra engulfed finger, Naruto traced a seal about two feet wide all over Gaara's torso and abdomen, then struck the middle with his palm. The entire thing shrunk inwards and became just a small little addition to his seal.

As the thing was vanishing, Naruto stepped back to look at his work. "How's it feel? Can you still hear him?"

Gaara sat and waited for several seconds. He raised a hand and looked at the palm, turning it over and over to see all the small little details of his hand. He pushed the hand forward at Naruto, fingers extended to the largest possible degree.

Then the hand fell limply to his side. "I… I can't hear the whispers anymore." Gaara said unbelievingly. "I can't… I can't hear them." He looked at Naruto. "I can't hear them." He kept on repeating over and over. "I can't hear them." A smile began to filter into Gaara's expression.

Naruto put his fist out for a bumping. Gaara immediately reciprocated and they were back in the room with two cages.

The one behind Gaara was being beat upon and thrashed about. Shukaku was definitely screaming out obscenities and threats if his mouth movements were to be believed, but no sound was piercing the cage.

Naruto sighed and looked up at the raging Tanuki, then back to Gaara. "If you ever want to talk to him again, just let me know, or something."

"Why would I ever want that?" Gaara whispered. "I'm free now."

"Well… yeah." Naruto looked up at the enraged bijuu. Whatever they were, they were sentient enough to hold idle conversation, and ideological enough to wish for freedom. No matter how much a dick a person is, no one deserves eternity being exploited for someone else. "But still… I think Shukaku is going to learn his lesson eventually. He might come around to the prospect of having a friend. If you're there for him, then I think you could both benefit."

Gaara didn't appear to be listening all too intently. He was mostly just looking around himself, looking for things Naruto wasn't sure would ever be there. Naruto grabbed his hand. "Come on man, your family should be happy to know that you're not hearing voices anymore."

Gaara paused in his search. "Family?"

Naruto gave him a queer look. "Yeah, family. You know, the people that you're related to. Like Temari, or Kankuro, or your dad. People who love you."

"Nobody loves me." Gaara whispered.

Naruto might have facepalmed if the situation really didn't call for it. "Of course people love you." He muttered as he brought Gaara out of the mindscape and back to the living world.

Gaara sat and remained quiet, the happy smile on his face somewhat diminishing. "Nobody loves me. Ever since I was born, I've been scorned and turned away because of what I am. Because of what I might do by accident."

Naruto took a deep breath. "Yeah. Same with me. I'm a Jinchuuriki too, you know. Ever since I was born, I've been trying to get the acceptance of the people around me, but it was like I was invisible to them."

"…What happened? You're surrounded by people who accept you now. Is there… some trick to get people to like you?" Gaara asked quietly.

Naruto stroked his chin thoughtfully. "There's really only one thing that comes to mind. You just can't give up, I guess. If people don't like you, then be nice to them until they're forced to like you in return. But you have it easy. You already have family. I was born an orphan, whereas you have at the very least three people who love you."

"They… love me?"

"Of course they love you; they're your family."

Gaara didn't look too sure. "I… I-" his train of thought was interrupted, however, when the window to the room opened and two ninja with blank face masks hopped in.

"Naruto Uzumaki." One of them said formally. "You are hereby conscripted into the services of Root. Come with us quietly."

Naruto was so shocked by the sudden information that he took a few seconds to answer. "Huh?"

"Danzo-sama wishes to meet you. You have special abilities that could save the village from destruction. We need those abilities."

"Look man, I don't care who sent you. I'm not going with you. I'm injured and having a conversation with a friend of mine."

"If you do not comply, we will be forced to take you using any means necessary."

Naruto's eyes narrowed. Nothing happened for two heartbeats, then Naruto jumped to the side and tried to grab his puppet bo staff that had been with his other personal items. Before he could reach it, he felt something hit his neck and he suddenly couldn't move too well. With the momentum that the sudden jump and the inability to move after making said jump, Naruto impacted the wall face first. If he could have winced, he would have. Not because of the impact with the wall and the blood trickling down his face and chest from the probably broken nose, but because of the sudden blossoming of pain that came from his shoulder.

Kashikoi jumped up from the bed and yipped all around them, biting at their Achilles and calf muscles, tripping up their legs, do her hardest to make sure they didn't take her master.

They paid her no mind. As if she wasn't even there

Strong arms grabbed Naruto by the armpits and hoisted him up onto the back of a still unidentified shinobi.

All through this, Gaara stared with wide eyes. He tried to stop their movements with sand, an automatic reflex, before he remembered the fact that his sand had been forcefully confiscated during his unconsciousness.

Gaara couldn't move either. Going into a forced Jinchuuriki state would be disastrous to any Jinchuuriki, not counting the fact that their normal human reserves aren't all that large. So he couldn't move to stop them as they jumped out the window with the cargo on their back.

Furiously, he pressed the nurse call button as quickly as he could. Kashikoi yipped at the door, trying her hardest to gain attention from others in the hallway.

Seconds passed for Gaara like eternities did for others. He stopped and looked hopefully to the door as he heard furious and heavy footfalls from the hallway. A poorly dressed injured woman of unknown origin slammed through the doors and gave the room a quick once over.

All the energy seemed to leave her upon seeing the open window. Her knees wobbled and collapsed out from under her. Her hands grabbed a hold of the sheets and blanket of the hospital bed, desperately trying their hardest to support her.

There was a strange red pattern flaring up on her neck much like the one that Naruto had, only this one was contained within a circle of seals.

She coughed, spluttered, and rose. Shambling to the window, she fell again and puked a torrid green acid looking substance onto the bed.

The doors opened once more to an imposing man that didn't look like knew what was happening. He immediately went 'game face' and restricted Anko to a bed that wasn't covered in an acidic vomit. When he tried to answers, but no avail, Gaara decided to speak up about the situation.

Jiraiya ran over to his bed and Gaara supplied the man with concise, detailed answers to his question. Jiraiya got a grim look on his face and jumped out the window, probably having an idea as to where Naruto was.

The nurses came into the room next, looking for answers. Gaara supplied them with the answers that he thought they needed to know and they, in turn, restrained Anko even further into her bed and applied a sedative, probably a safety to not exacerbating her wounds. Anko fell unconscious and they wheeled her out of the room.

Gaara was left alone with an agitated fox.

It was a good thing that he was left alone, or at least without conversation worthy company, because he had a lot to think about. Things like his relationship to other human beings, including but not limited to, his family. Now that he was actually alone in his head, he was also able to feel some of the more intellectually stimulated feelings, like fear, or worry, especially towards his new friend Naruto.

That being said, he lived his life until that moment either in pragmatism or joyous ecstasy at the feeling of killing a person. Seeing that he didn't have anybody to kill or any reason to, he reverted to the first feeling, that of pragmatic silence.

He knew that he could do nothing to help Naruto. After all, his body didn't work all too well and he didn't have his sand with him. If he tried to help, he'd be more a hindrance than anything.

So he didn't.

He decided to wait until further stimulus roused him from his thoughts.

And, as it had been previously mentioned, he had a lot to think about.

00000000

Naruto coughed and spluttered as he suddenly found himself back within the waking world. The air was heavy and hard to breathe. Stale, as if he was in an abandoned mine. There was little to no lighting in the room he was in. The minimal amount of light was filtered in through the paper walls, giving everything a grayish glow. As his vision cleared, he propped himself into a sitting position and was immediately mentally drawn to the desk directly in front of him and the man who was sitting there with a patient look on his face. Behind him and all across the walls were adages about being a shinobi. Most of them were strange and warped.

Naruto tried to speak, but there was something clogging his throat. After coughing up the spit and bile stuck in his esophagus onto the floor, he brought his face back up to glare at the man. "Who are you?" Naruto asked, glaring all the way.

"Danzo. Danzo Shimura. Leader of Root, the black ops of the black ops within the walls of Konohagakure." He said slowly and ornately. His speech pattern gave all the pertinent information, none of the implied information. Danzo was there for a conversation, not an ordering.

"Why am I here?" Naruto asked, looking around the room some more. There were a few shinobi in subordinate poses behind him. To his side, there was a chair bolted to the ground, which he sat in.

"You have been conscripted to become a member of Root."

"You can't just take me against my will. I have rights as a human being and as a shinobi."

"I have both the power and the authority to do as I please in this time period."

"And just what time period is that, exactly?"

"War." Danzo said, his serious face turning even more serious.

Naruto gave a humorless laugh. "If we were at war, I think I'd know."

Danzo sighed in exasperation. "Allow me to revise my statement Uzumaki-san. We are _about_ to be at war. Your services will be required, thus the conscription."

"Why my services? I'm the resident Jinchuuriki, remember? Aren't there going to be questions about where I jumped off to?"

"When it comes to protecting the sanctity of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, you will come to know that I hold absolute authority. Even more than the Hokage."

Naruto paused, struck by the information given to him. "The-The black ops of the black ops." Naruto said, bringing up an earlier point in conversation. "Just what is that? Sounds like a weird conspiracy theory joke."

"I can assure you, this is no joke. The ANBU of the Black Ops division are shinobi of all rank and ability who all portray a certain mindset which would make them suitable operatives. The Root shinobi are different. While those in the Black Ops are morally ambivalent, there are times when basic humanity must be discarded for the greater good. That's where I, and the shinobi I control, come in."

Naruto crossed his arms over his chest. "I get that whole 'for the greater good' thing. I don't really like it or anything, but why do you think that I, of all people, lack basic humanity. I love people. I love the people closest to me. I am human. You can't change that."

"You'd be surprised what I'm capable of, Uzumaki-san." Danzo said dangerously.

Naruto unconsciously backed up in his seat. "I don't care what you think you can do to me. I'm not joining your Root. I'm not joining the ANBU. And I'm definitely not listening to you. We're not at war!"

"But we will be." Danzo said simply. "I'm not sure if you've noticed or not, but there's a lot of misplaced and directionless anger being represented on the main stage at the moment. Eventually, the powers are going to decide that this was Konoha's fault for allowing Orochimaru to do as he pleased. Mist might not join because of the rebellion, but you can believe that Sand, Cloud, and Stone are going to be participating in the three-on-one war. Konoha will be dismantled and distributed as the spoils of war. It will be simple for them because even if we're the mightiest village of them all, we can't hope to repel all three of them. That's why we need you."

"Need me for what? I'm not a damn robot. I'm not going to do whatever you say. And how do you know that? They could just let it go and realize that none of this was Konoha's fault."

"Or they could not. We need to act first in a way that eliminates that possibility."

"And how are we going to do that?" Naruto asked derisively.

"…This was all the machinations of a treaty between Taki, Kumo, and Otogakure, the Hidden Sound Village."

Naruto's eyes went wide. "But… wait. No it wasn't. This was all Orochimaru's fault. Kumo and Taki had nothing to do with any of this."

"You've built up a reputation of being shockingly honest and goodhearted amongst the genin of the nations. Annoyingly so. Once the kage hear your testimony about an eavesdropped conversation between the Nanabi Jinchuuriki and the Niibi Jinchuuriki in a plot to undermine the rest of the nations and bring Konoha to its knees, there will be war. But in this scenario, we're going to be the ones winning."

Naruto glared at the man. "You want me to betray one of my best friends? One of the only people who can feel just a little bit of empathy towards me? I. Refuse."

Danzo did a sad little sigh. "Have you not been listening, Uzumaki-san? You will do this whether you want to or not." He made a motion to the other shinobi behind Naruto. They stood up and walked up behind Naruto in his chair. "There's also one other matter to be discussed."

"And what's that?" Naruto asked, losing his patience at all the bullshit being shoved down his throat.

"The fact that you recently acquired a bloodline attribute from a very well respected clan within Konoha… when you previously had no such DNA within your body."

Naruto paused. "I-I… I don't know how I got that."

"You are lying, Uzumaki-san. Either you can tell me now how you got that bloodline, I can inject with a variety of serums to get the truth out of you that way, or we can just move on to the second phase of your training."

"The… second? What about the first?"

Before Naruto's world erupted in sparks and pain, he saw just the grim look of a pragmatist trying his best to protect his country. He also saw a jingoistic asshole that would crush the throat of a small child if it so much as waved a fist Konoha's way. That was what made the character of Danzo Shimura. Protecting Konoha by destroying everything around it. Dualistic identities.

Naruto was sent to the floor, where he did an acrobatic maneuver to right himself and face the two shinobi, one of which was holding a baton-looking stick, which had just been used to club him. He didn't have any time to think as the second shinobi rushed at him and proceeded to do his darndest to beat Naruto within an inch of his life.

As Naruto faced off with the two Root shinobi, Danzo tracked his every movement. If there was even the whiff of anything remarkable happening, any bloodline awakening, anything that might make Naruto even more a military asset than he already was, he'd be there.

00000000

20 minutes later.

Jiraiya ran down the dank, dark, gray, and depressing hallway of the lower sewer system of Konoha. Generally, Danzo only used the one central hub of Root to do his business. Anything from training the new Root recruits to scheming up another shitstorm was done there.

Only he wasn't. And neither were any of the Root. And neither was Naruto.

That gave Jiraiya the credence go with overcaution rather than undercaution. Frogs were generally not used for tracking and reconnaissance, but desperate times called for any desperate measures. One of his chakra sensing summons managed to find a large collection of angry chakra from several hundred feet below Konoha, a place that Jiraiya did not know of.

That led to his current situation, trying his hardest to find a pathway or a secret door that would get him to the area described by the toad. Since he was under Konoha, which was being held up by the support of the underground halls, any destructive technique to get him below could result in a cave-in of the whole city. Something he really didn't want at that moment.

Jiraiya slid to a stop at a nearby wall. To the untrained eye, it would look like any other section of the wall, but to Jiraiya, who was adept in sensing the chakra used in sealing, it was a passageway activated by a blood seal.

Muttering to himself in frustration, annoyance, and fear, he brought out a rubber glove and put it on his right hand. Although he wasn't keyed in to the seal, considering the amount that the passage was probably used and how recently it was probably activated, there could be lingering blood cells not killed off by oxidation. Using a small water jutsu, he sprayed a fine mist on the wall and rubbed it down with his gloved hand.

It flashed white and opened without a sound.

He was about to go in when his ears picked up a sound. From down the hallway, it sounded as if someone was dragging a piece of leather back forth very rapidly on the ground. It picked up speed and distance alarmingly quickly, forcing Jiraiya to take cover in the secret passageway as a large snake summon slithered its way over and suddenly stopped, baring the way for anyone else to get in conventionally. There was a sudden and determined silence as both parties waited for the other to react.

"Anko?" Jiraiya whispered.

There was the sound of a person disembarking off the large summon before it poofed away in smoke. Standing before him was the bedraggled form of Anko Mitarashi. She had her mesh undercoat on at a crooked angle and was wearing sweatpants. Her feet were bare and she looked exhausted beyond belief.

"Anko? How did you get here? You're supposed to be resting in the hospital! You just had major torso surgery!"

"I'm fine." She said breathlessly. "The curse seal was making me go haywire. Once it calmed down, I was able to move."

"How did you get past the nurses? What clothes are you wearing? How did you get here?"

"I'm a ninja, my clothes, snakes are better at sniffing people out than toads. I followed you."

Jiraiya looked like he was about to go off on a philippic, but realized he didn't have the time nor the resources to do so. Danzo had a reputation for doing all he could possibly do in order to protect the walls of Konoha. It was the reason why Hiruzen allowed him to operate. He would do all the things Hiruzen knew was necessary for Konoha, but wouldn't be possible to be accomplished without an army of brainwashed, highly trained shinobi. It was also a reason why Jiraiya didn't want him anywhere near Naruto

His hand lit up in a small fire jutsu, lighting the pathway to the new hidden addition to Root. We walked in and trained his senses as far as they could go. It wasn't unheard of for Danzo to fill up the halls that he worked in with hidden traps. As much as he wanted to, Jiraiya wouldn't let himself go any faster.

The further they walked in, the more they got a picture of what was going on under there. Sounds of steel against steel, the whooshing of fire jutsu, the crackling of lightening, the cracking of wood against flesh. There was a fight going on under there.

But those sounds weren't what disturbed Jiraiya or Anko the most. No, it was the horrid, demented laughter from within.

Their eyes met and both came to a sudden agreement.

Caution to the wind. They had to work fast.

Sprinting down the dark hallway, the only illumination being the fire in Jiraiya's palms, their imaginations running wild at what could be going on in the hidden room Danzo made. Anko and Jiraiya feared for the worst, but hoped for the best.

Eventually, the tunnel opened up into a circular chamber that was self-lit by fluorescent lights. Root shinobi of all rank, age, and creed were crowded around a circular opening. Underneath them, there was a second floor being used as a fighting ring.

Pushing their way past the Root, they saw the extent of what was happening.

Blood, steel, burn marks, torn flesh, dismembered limbs. All those things were in the focal point of the ring. Standing in its center was Naruto Uzumaki, not that either of them could recognize that by sight. Blood coated every portion of his body, there was a red haze of bijuu chakra surrounding his form, the flaming black curse seal ran all around his body. His eyes were swollen shut and had veins popping up from his temples to his eyes. Though it was hard to tell, he was definitely crying tears of blood as he viciously took in rasping breaths of air.

Jiraiya eyed up to everyone watching and immediately found Danzo, who had a no-touch zone of about two feet, in where nobody thought to breach.

Seeing as Naruto was alone in the ring, probably volatile, and not dead for the most part, Jiraiya decided the best course of action would be to beat the shit out of Danzo, wait for Naruto to regain his composure, and take him back to the hospital, but not before giving the warmonger a very stern death threat.

He expected Anko would have the same thoughts as he jumped on the inside of the ring and wall ran to where Danzo was. Though in hindsight, he probably should have realized that Anko wasn't in the right mind space either.

He tackled Danzo to the ground and leveled a kunai to his throat. "Danzo!" he cried. "You went too far this time! You agreed that you wouldn't touch Naruto. He was off-limits!"

"I made that agreement with Hiruzen, who is now dead." Danzo said level-headedly, as if he weren't pinned to the ground with a kunai to his throat. "And I have every right to conscript shinobi of special talent and status into my ranks."

Jiraiya growled at the man. "That's my godson. I won't let you have him." He pressed the kunai further into his neck. "I'm going to walk out of here with him. If I find out you put that god-forsaken seal on his tongue, I swear to god, I'm going to hunt you down and shove a sword up your ass." Jiraiya got off the man and looked down on him as if he were nothing more than dirt. "Now call off your shinobi. We're leaving."

"You would so readily commit treason? We're at war, Jiraiya. We need him if we're going to get out of it."

"We're going to get out of it just fine without your over-the-top readiness to screw everybody over. It's people like you that make the world leaders not want to trust anyone!" Jiraiya turned around and was about to order Anko to follow his lead in restraining Naruto when he realized she wasn't behind him.

Eyes going wide in concern, he ran to the railing and looked into the ring. He arrived just in time to see Anko wrap the still volatile Naruto in a great big hug. She was whispering things in his ears, probably words of apology or sorrow.

"ANKO! GET OUT OF THERE!" Jiraiya shouted at the top of his lungs.

Now if this were one of those happy-dramatic scenes, Naruto's various rage inducing stimuli would vanish at the presence of such heartfelt love and concern. Anko would hug his broken form to her body and maybe plant a kiss on his forehead as he was whisked off to exhausted sleep.

That's not what happened. Naruto growled animalisticly, shoved her away, and buried a tail of pure red chakra in her gut.

This just wasn't her day, was it?

**AN/ Hello everybody. Gent here.**

**You know, I actually kind of like Danzo as a character. He's sort of the gray villain, that teaches the protagonist that nothing is truly good or bad, it's just what you do and what you make of it that colors the perspective of you and those around you.**

**Anyway, how did I do with Gaara? It's really hard to get his character right, because it's so hard to pin down what may or may not set him off on a rampage, or on a good cry.**

**So Naruto managed to help Gaara a bit, got conscripted into Root, was tested on how his kekai genkai formed, found by Jiraiya and Anko, and stabbed her in the gut.**

**Lots of things happening.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	22. a change of pace

Chapter 22

Fu woke to silence.

It wasn't oppressive, it wasn't uncomfortable, it wasn't deafening.

It was nice. The silence.

Taking in her surroundings, she sat up and stretched her back out some.

Fu noted that she was in a hospital room with more people than would normally be within capacity. There were cots and rolls of blankets on the floor. People slept soundly for the most part, the odd snore or groan of discomfort sounding out every now and then.

She smacked her lips and tongue a little bit. Her mouth felt like there was a lining of cloth all around the inside of her cheeks and tongue.

Cotton mouth.

Placed neatly by her bedside and near all the electronics making slight whirring sounds was a singular tall glass of water. She took and drank the entire thing in one whole chug. It was lukewarm. Although she didn't feel particularly parched, the dryness of her mouth had screamed out for her to saturate it before uncomfortableness grew too great for her to handle.

The glass went back to the bedside with a light clink.

The window out of the room held a perfect view of the large moon in the dark sky, shedding light unto the patients of the room like so much calming milk after a vomit session.

Fu looked around a little bit more. Little details of the room jumped out to her in ways that she would never have noticed before.

The furrowing of brows in a middle aged man across from her. The beads of sweat dropping off the forehead of a heavily blanketed woman on the floor. The slight discrepancy in the breathing patterns of two patients facing each other in the same bed. One had a hospital smock on, while the other was in her fatigues. Judging from the fact that the window was open, Fu guessed the woman snuck in to sleep with her injured husband or significant other.

'Chomei?' Fu mentally whispered.

There was a light buzzing in the recesses of her mind. **"Hello little one. I didn't know when you'd be waking."**

'We're in the hospital, right? That means that… is… Konoha still standing?'

"**To my knowledge. Your senses are my senses; I haven't heard anyone saying different."**

'Huh?' Fu said mentally. She felt airy, light, energetic even. There was no way she was going to be going back to sleep. No way in hell.

She didn't even feel shocked. She was cognizant of everything happening around her and had a pretty good memory and idea of what happened during the chunin exams.

There was an ambush, maybe an invasion. Someone jumped down and put all the genin in a genjutsu, slapped something on her back, where her seal was, and tried to do the same to Naruto. Fu stopped her by means of swords through the chest, then everything blacked out. When she woke up, Naruto was hovering above her with a proud look on his face and kind words on his lips. Everything around her was chaotic and destroyed. After that, she decided that a little nap probably wouldn't kill her and allowed her exhaustion to overcome her.

Then she woke up in a hospital with other hurt shinobi.

Calmly, she got out of bed and tiptoed to the door. Afraid of waking anyone with the light, she cracked it to the smallest increment allowed for her small frame to slip through, and shoved herself out, closing it softly beside her before the very notion of waking was even a fleeting whisper in the ear of the afflicted.

Contrasted to the milky darkness of the room she was just in, the halls of the hospital were painstakingly white and bright. The fluorescent lights assaulted her eyes, but she, strangely, didn't feel the need to squint or cover them to allow the light to filter naturally.

'Hey Chomei, I feel… strange.' Fu said mentally as she began walking down the hall without a destination in mind.

"**Your entire body did just bathe and saturate itself in my chakra for an amount of time that probably isn't healthy… or is completely healthy- I don't know."** Chomei said quickly. **"Your senses and mental acuity are heightened as far as I can tell. It might be temporary, might not."**

Fu frowned a little bit, then focused all her concentration on the creation of two simple objects. A light glimmer flowed across her body and she opened her eyes. Looking behind her, two insect-like wings made themselves known by bursting out of the seams of her hospital robe. Experimentally, she flapped them a bit and found out that if she was quick enough, she could make enough lift to alight into the air.

She dropped to the ground and let the wings retract back into herself. 'Is that temporary?' She asked.

"**I hope not. That was cool."**

'Agreed.'

Fu continued to walk along the floor of the hospital, just looking around to see what could be seen.

Every once and a while, she'd see a kid with a bald head playing with some simple toys in a hallway, or an old man mumbling to himself indistinctly, or a grown man with bandages around his abdomen pitifully groaning in pain on a small cot shoved off to the side.

Just when she felt like she had visited more wards and halls than she was supposed to, she found herself in front of an information desk. It was one of those circular ones in the middle of the room that was supposed to have five or six nurses attending it at once, giving information in all directions. But the room was bare of life and the desk was almost the same. There was a single, dozing man in white hospital pajamas with his head in the crutch of his arms.

Fu walked up to him and tapped the desk a little bit. Surprised and agitated at the sudden stimuli, he jumped up and began blinking rapidly. "Hello, whgat can I vdoo for you?" He asked before he was even aware he was asking it.

"I'm looking for my friend." Fu said hoarsely. She hadn't realized her throat was incapable of speech until that moment. Clearing her throat of the gunk, she waited for his response.

He sighed a little bit and busied himself with checking his clipboard. "Listen darling." He said condescendingly, like one would say to a child. Though Fu _was_ a child at the ripe old age of fourteen, so nobody could really place him in the wrong at the time. "We're just getting back on our feet from the battle. There are a lot of undocumented shinobi, citizens, and foreigners all in the hospital. It's really hard to find them at the moment. It's probably better if you go back to your room to rest some."

"Where are the Taki genin?" Fu asked, completely disregarding his advice.

His shoulders slouched. He knew that he was in for a longer night than would have been preferred the moment she opened her mouth to ask for more information. "With the exception of the Nanabi Jinchuuriki and the village leader, all Taki shinobi have gone back to Taki."

"Naruto… Uzumaki Naruto. Where is he?"

"Naruto?" he asked again with squinted eyes. "I can't tell you. That's confidential."

"I was his partner for the exams. Where is he?" She asked again.

He paused to give her a slightly more meaningful look. "You're… Fu? The girl who became mentally afflicted by an assailant and destroyed a lot of both inner and outer Konoha… the one who isn't slated to wake up for another week or so?"

"I feel fine." She stated. "Where's Naruto?"

"The reason we can't divulge that information is because someone might want to inflict harm on him in his weakened state." He said in a slightly agitated tone. "I'm going to need some proof that you're who you say you are."

Fu popped her wings.

The man clicked his tongue and checked his clipboard again. "Upper floor, special ward, second room on the right… oh wait." He paused to look over the information once more. "Says he's predisposed at the moment-"

In a strangely convenient portrayal of events, just as those words left his speaking hole, the double doors at the end of the hall burst open and in wheeled two beds. One was so surrounded by nurses and doctors that the occupant was unable to be seen, while the other was beaten so badly and covered in such a profusely large amount of blood that any physical features were not readily apparent. Behind the two beds was a briskly walking Jiraiya with an uncharacteristically serious face.

Fu left the male nurse to his confused devices and fell in step next to Jiraiya. The boy on the hospital bed was leaking a sort of malignant chakra that was being sucked into a bloodied seal on his abdomen. Even if he wasn't recognizable, Fu knew without a doubt that the person on the bed was Naruto.

"What happened?" She asked flatly to the Sannin.

"Got captured by a group of emotionless shinobi who wanted to turn him into a weapon. He went apeshit in all the wrong ways." Jiraiya responded simply, taking the fact that Fu was now awake and with two new back appendages in stride.

"Is he still alive?"

"Just about?"

"Is he at risk for death?"

"Nope."

Fu continued to ask the imposing man questions about the state of her partner even while they boarded the large elevator with nurses and doctors buzzing around the two hurt shinobi and were left outside as ninja medics took the two into surgery. One for the second time in the same day.

Might have been a record.

When Fu was out of questions to ask and Jiraiya was out of answers to give, he excused himself and jumped out the window.

Without much purpose or direction, she decided to follow him with the help of her new appendages.

Flying certainly was strange for her, but it came to her naturally. There wasn't much stumbling around in the air or flailing about. The wings mostly just flew themselves and she gave them directions with what path she wanted to go for.

Jiraiya took notice of the bug tailing him immediately and stopped on a roof to confront her. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Following you."

"Buzz off, would you? I have an important meeting to attend." Jiraiya answered brusquely.

Fu quirked an eyebrow. "Buzz off? Really? Which important meeting are you going to?"

Jiraiya furrowed his brow in confusion at the actions of the girl hovering a few feet above him. Sure, she was never exactly the warmest of people and didn't have a particularly sociable attitude. But unless she was doing something that directly interested her or had an effect on the situation she was in, she just kept to herself. It was unlike her to be nosy.

"There's an emergency meeting between the kage." Jiraiya answered. "After what happened to Naruto, I just want this whole situation to be over."

Fu tilted her head to the side. "Situation?"

Oh, that's right. Fu didn't know that the world was inches away from erupting into war. She just exuded an aura that seemed to say 'I know what I'm doing, what I'm talking about, and everything else in between' at the moment, so Jiraiya never bothered to fill her in.

She heard everything he said without breaking expression or poise.

"You can see how this is a delicate situation. I need you to go." Jiraiya said in finality.

"Yes." Fu stated. "But I'm still going to follow you. I want to help."

Jiraiya sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't-"

"I'm a weapon." Fu said, cutting him off. "The power of human sacrifice. I was made to destroy with the power of a giant flying armored beetle locked away inside my body. If the fate of the world is hanging in the balance, I have a right to know. I'm following you." She said with a sense of finality.

Deciding that getting rid of her would cause more destruction and heartache than he would like at the moment, he gave in and proceeded to jump around on the rooftops towards the direction of Kage administration. He ran and jumped faster than normal, in the hopes of shaking off the green-haired, flying missile, though didn't get much luck in that regards. She was damn fast with those wings.

He finally landed on the roof of the building and hopped in a window, soon followed by Fu. All furniture and desks were shoved to the side to make room for the motley of people residing in it. The Tsuchikage had three attendants, Kurotsuchi, Akatsuchi, and Kitsuchi. The Mizukage was alone. The Kazekage was flanked by two of his children, Kankuro and Temari. And The Raikage had his two Jinchuuriki on either side of him. Shibuki was off the side a little bit, trying his hardest to not get noticed.

Everyone looked disgruntled and angry. The night was beginning to give way to the wee hours of the morning and it didn't look like everyone was happy for the fact.

"Ho." Onoki said in annoyance. "The great and gallant Jiraiya finally arrives. The last to arrive and the first to order the meeting."

Jiraiya gave an inoffensive, grunt of affirmation his way. He sat in a chair, put his head in his hands and sighed explosively. "Okay." He said after a while of internal deliberations. "What are your final offers?" He asked.

"Money." Yagura stated.

"Power." Ai stated.

"Land." The fourth kazekage stated.

"Respect." Onoki stated.

Each of the words looked like they impacted him with the weight of several tons of responsibility. "How much?" He asked quietly.

"Four million." Yagura stated. "I've got a rebellion to quell and don't need any immaterial things."

"A main branch member of the Hyuuga family." Ai said. "I in no way condone the way my diplomat handled things all those years ago, but if Cloud is to survive, we're going to need more bloodline holders." He quickly added.

"The western forests of the Land of Fire." The fourth Kazekage said. "We need more resources for trade. We need the fishing pole, not the fish."

"The Hiraishin jutsu." Onoki said. "Iwagakure is plenty strong and wealthy enough. We want a symbol for it. The jutsu of the man who decimated our main shinobi force is enough for that."

"Four million will bankrupt us. The Hyuuga will rebel. The lord of the land of fire might cut ties with us if we sell off that much land. And you want us to give you a weapon of mass destruction?" Jiraiya said. "Be a little more reasonable. This was not any of Konoha's fault."

"You hosted the exams." The fourth Kazekage said.

"A pact to protect the citizens and shinobi of our nations was made when you accepted that responsibility." Ai said.

"You broke it. Now countless shinobi and citizens are dead because you couldn't uphold your promise. We need compensation." Yagura said.

"Most of the dead, displaced, or wounded are citizens of Konoha." Jiraiya hissed between clenched teeth.

"Does that excuse the hundreds of foreigners that died?" Ai asked.

Jiraiya ground his teeth in frustration. Having the kage and their remaining forces lingering in Konoha for much longer would cause Danzo to do something drastic in order to secure their survival. But accepting their terms would only delay the destruction of Konoha. Like the sick man of the world, Konoha would eventually collapse inwards if it met the terms of the leaders.

Basically, Jiraiya was having to make a choice between two events. The first one would either destroy Konoha immediately, or have it survive and be put in a war that would create chaos throughout the lands for decades to come. While the second one would place immense strain on the social, economic, and military clout that Konoha had, almost certainly calling for a slow death.

Danzo was evil, there was no doubt about that, but he was a special kind of evil. A necessary evil. The death of entire clans, the disruption of power in upcoming villages and countries, the sabotage of allies, things that he did to make sure Konoha stayed on top of the world. Jiraiya didn't like it, but he did see the need for it. Though this situation was different. If Danzo was going to do what Jiraiya thought he was going to do, then the death of Konoha would be a small price to pay for the security and order of the world.

Just as he was about to accept to those ludicrous terms, Fu stepped forward and addressed the Raikage.

"Do you really want to do that?" She asked in monotone.

He raised an eyebrow at her, then grunted in confusion.

"If it weren't for Konoha." She said with a weight betraying her small, petite stature. "Bee, your brother, would be dead. So would Yugito." She said this to Ai, but faced Bee and Yugito respectively when she said those names.

When he said nothing at her in return, she looked back at Jiraiya. "He did save those two, right?"

Jiraiya nodded. He told her the situations that Naruto was put into in order to mitigate the destruction of Konoha.

Turning around to face Ai once more, she opened her mouth to speak again, but was beat to the punch by Yugito. The cat Jinchuuriki in question leaned in and softly said "Perhaps it would be for the best if we lowered the price a little bit."

Ai grunted, eyes not wavering from Fu for a second.

"Yo, Yo, bro. Konoha's been real nice. Maybe we should lower the price." Bee rapped out with a worried expression on his brow. He'd been internally questioning Ai's decision since the beginning, but didn't speak up until Fu did. He didn't have much love for Konoha at all, having participating in his own share of battles involving the leaf nin, though he did think it was a bit much to ask for such an impossible thing from them.

Ai lowered his gaze slightly. It wasn't in his nature to slack down and give into the words of others. Getting the Byakugan would be a tremendous boon for Cloud. That, and he really didn't care what happened to Konoha afterwards.

Although… there was something eating at him on the inside. It might have been the unflinching eyes of Fu, who didn't care in the slightest that he was purportedly the 'fastest man alive', that practically said to him 'you may be an asshole, but I didn't think you were one hundred percent a dick.' It might have been the testimonies of both his Jinchuuriki, one of which was his adopted brother. Whatever the case was, he eventually lowered his head and said "Five A-ranked earth jutsu. That's my final term."

Jiraiya's eyes lit up some. Five A-ranked jutsu is still fairly unreasonable, but it wouldn't cause a civil war in Konoha.

As he was about to accept those terms, the door opened to a very strange sight. In wobbled a Sand nin with a cast on one of her arms and a kid in hospital wear on her back. The kid had dusty red hair and black rings around his eyes. He seemed just as surprised to see them as they were to see him.

"Hello father." He said in monotone. "I need to speak to you for a moment."

The fourth Kazekage's mouth opened and closed a few times, before he remarked "Huh?"

"I need to speak to you for a moment." Gaara repeated. "Also, I would like my sand back."

"Gaara?" Temari and Kankuro asked in unison and combined confusion.

He nodded to his siblings, his carrier becoming very intimidated by the stares of the four kage and three Jinchuuriki. "I needed to talk to you, but I couldn't move very well." Gaara said, as if that would explain why he was being held piggyback on a Sand kunoichi.

Finally, the fourth Kazekage steeled himself and addressed his insane son. "You can't have your sand back. You're too dangerous."

Gaara's eyes went half-lidded as sand flowed into the room from the doorway. He could create sand at any time so long as he had ready access to soil or dirt, but he took time with enriching his gourd sand with chakra to make it suitable for his 'absolute defense' technique.

Gold dust flowed out from the fourth Kazekage's robes and imbedded itself in the sand Gaara was using. The sand stopped advancing.

"Father, I merely wished to show that I no longer feel the need to kill. Please let go of my sand."

The fourth Kazekage faltered for a moment. "What?" He asked.

"Uzumaki Naruto fixed my seal so that I wouldn't hear the whispering anymore. I no longer feel compelled to kill anymore. Now if could have just a moment-"

"Uzumaki Naruto fixed you?" he asked before turning to glare at Jiraiya. "Was this your doing?"

He put his hands up to declare having not had anything to do with it.

The words died in the mouth of the fourth Kazekage when Temari tentatively took a few steps forward toward her brother on the back of the nameless kunoichi. She stood in front of him with wide, unbelieving eyes.

Gaara tried to look at them directly, but was forced to avert his eyes. "Temari… I'm sorry that I've treated you so poorly for so long. You're my family and that was inappropriate. Please forgive me." He said in complete monotone.

Temari did a sort of half smile and took Gaara from the injured Sand kunoichi. She held him bridal style, easily able to hold his small frame in her arms, and hugged him into her. She laughed a little bit. "Of course I forgive you. You're my brother."

While everyone's heart was busy melting at such a heartwarming gesture, Temari placed Gaara on her back and brought him to Kankuro and her father where he said his apologies and asked for the reason for the meeting between the kage.

"Their western forests?" Gaara asked. "That would place them at odds with their daimyo."

The fourth Kazekage didn't say anything.

"Father." Gaara said. "Naruto Uzumaki, of Konoha, just saved me even when he didn't have to. Now you want to destroy Konoha? That's unacceptable."

"It's Konoha's fault for the deaths of Sand shinobi and citizens that came to the exams. We can't come back to the village empty handed."

"Then take something else. Like favors."

"Favors?"

"Yes father. At some point in the future, Konoha will come to our aide without asking for anything in return, or something along those lines."

"No." The fourth Kazekage said. "We need sustainability, not consumable deals."

Gaara's emotionless stare persisted.

The fourth Kazekage lowered his head and sighed into his palm. "Though I suppose that after Konoha fixed a major technical problem in my son's bijuu seal, I'll have to settle for something more reasonable… All trading sanctions between not only the village, but the entire Land of Fire will be lifted against the Land of Wind and all its residents."

Getting on this train of not completely kicking Konoha in the balls while it was down, Kurotsuchi nudged her grandfather in the shoulder with her elbow. "Maybe we should lighten up too, Gramps."

"And return to Iwa empty handed?" Onoki snorted. "I don't think so."

"It's not like anyone in our village would know how to use that jutsu." Kitsuchi added. "Practically no one practices in sealing anymore."

Onoki crossed his arms. "I'm not letting up. I don't care if we can't use it now. We'll train someone."

"Don't be so stubborn Gramps." Kurotsuchi said in exasperation. "That thing was labeled a weapon of mass destruction anyways. They don't have the balls to use that ever again."

Onoki grumbled to himself. "I will not be goaded into relenting by my own granddaughter. Iwa will have this jutsu, and that is final."

"All you're taking is a trophy, right? Why would we take a trophy that no one could see or use? We need something cooler than that." Kurotsuchi said ecstatically.

Onoki raised an eyebrow. "What do you have in mind?"

Kurotsuchi giggled and pointed out the window and towards the monument that was remarkably unscathed by the war. "How about his nose?"

"…What?" Jiraiya asked.

"We want the fourth Hokage's nose." Kurotsuchi stated, still pointing at the monument.

Jiraiya tilted his head towards the sculpture of the fourth Hokage's head, then swiveled it back to the granddaughter of the Tsuchikage. "Deal."

Kurotsuchi wooped in joy, while Onoki grumbled to himself and Kitsuchi laughed lightly.

All eyes went to Yagura, who had been watching with dull, bored eyes. He looked across the room, not really knowing why everyone was staring at him. "What?" He finally asked. "Do you expect me to go back on my demand just because everyone went back on theirs?"

"I was actually hoping that, yeah." Jiraiya said. "Please. Even if you could just lower the amount. Konoha needs the funds to rebuild." He asked pleadingly.

Yagura stared at everyone in the room. It was okay to ask for a ludicrous demand when everyone else was doing it, because there was the unspoken agreement that Konoha was probably going to die when everything was said and done. But now that it looked like there was a chance for rebuilding if he took away his demand, there was a pressure on him. It didn't matter if he won the civil war against the rebels. If there was ever an international conflict again, no one would trust him not to pick the carcass of his ally clean when everything would be hypothetically said and done.

After thinking the situation through a bit and with the eyes of everyone on him, he finally broke down. "Fine." He said. "But… you are the spymaster of Konoha, correct?"

Jiraiya nodded.

"Then I request your services for two years. Any intel you can get on the rebels, any weaknesses, any people of significance, any moles, anything that could help me put that rebellion down, you will help me with." Yagura said with a triumphant smirk on his face.

Jiraiya looked across the room at the four kage with a surprised and happy expression on his face. Whatever the outcome he'd been expecting, he was not expecting them all to come to somewhat reasonable agreements to allow Konoha the chance to live.

Sure, they weren't going to actively try and help Konoha back to its feet, but not kicking it while it was down was nothing short of a miracle when it came to those five people and considering their professions.

Jiraiya smiled jubilantly. Maybe the chunin exams weren't such a failure after all.

Maybe everyone could understand and help each other.

00000000

About 3 minutes later.

Fu stared at the unconscious face of Naruto.

As it turned out, Naruto didn't have any injuries that warranted surgery. Just extreme, crippling, bodily exhaustion. The doctors said they were sure that he was going to be out for at least a few months, though Fu had her reservations.

She felt strange as she stared at his face. Not strange in that warm, butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling, or that weird, conflicted feeling.

No. She just felt weird.

Like… hyper alert, but that wasn't the right to describe it.

More like… she felt that if she were to be given a task, then she would complete that task no matter what so long as she agreed to do it, either mentally or physically; without anything bothering her in the in-between. Nothing in the future or the past mattered at the moment. She couldn't feel anything like fear, worry, or sadness, because at the time, there doesn't need to be any of that stuff in order to accomplish her mission. She didn't have a mission at the moment, but that was beside the point

She couldn't feel hate or compassion or love either. She was just… she.

Fu experimentally created three rows of wings on her back and flexed them all at once, and individually. Then she coated herself in Chomei chakra and allowed it to coalesce into an impenetrable set of purplish exoskeletal armor.

Usually, even at the point where she was only coated in chakra, should would lose complete control of her emotions and go on a rampage. But now she was capable of not only being coated in the chakra, but using that chakra to create real bijuu appendages and structures on her body. Something that Yugito mentioned was only available to the highest levels of Jinchuuriki mastery.

All the armor and wings retracted back into herself.

There was something wrong with her. That much she knew.

While looking at Naruto, her eyes were drawn to something on his bedside. They were in the same room he was in before getting kidnapped, so all his stuff was there already. On the bedside was a book, a medium sized, novel looking book. There was no cover or writing on it all either.

Fu loved to read books. It was her favorite pastime. And even in the state where nothing of pain or pleasure mattered to her, she found herself inexplicably drawn to find out what Naruto had been reading.

She picked it up and opened it to the front page.

**AN/ Hello there.**

**Wow. You guys really hate me now, don't you?**

**Don't fucking worry. For God's sake, do you really think I'm going to forget about the game aspect of this? I was just giving it a break because there's a lot of game stuff going to be revealed in the next chapter.**

**Anyway, what's happened to Fu? Is Anko okay? Is Naruto going to wake up? What's Fu's reaction going to be at the book?**

**Find out all that stuff and maybe none of that stuff at all, NEXT CHAPTER.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	23. an update

**An update:**

**So hey, I've been gone for a bit (or at least by my definitions). Sorry for the wait, this is just a notification of what's up with the story.**

**Don't worry. I'm not dropping any bombs about whether or not I'm continuing.**

**I AM DEFINITELY CONTINUING.**

**I've just been distracted as of late and haven't been able to work on it much.**

**Anyway, school for me is coming up because I've got this program where I can earn high school and college credits simultaneously and do half the work in order to complete it. It's called Running Start and I'm taking college classes for it. It's a cool program and my school days have gone from six hours to three. So that means that either my update speed is going to skyrocket, or it's going to plummet. I still don't know.**

**Seeing as how I'm addressing you all directly, I might as well answer some of your pervading questions.**

**Did neji win in his fight?**

**Hinata was still conscious when the match was called in his favor, then she fell unconscious, rendering him unable to continue fighting. Although that would technically be called a draw, I'm confident in my knowledge of his early character that he would consider that a loss.**

**What happened to Anko?**

**Next chapter.**

**What's Fu going to find in the book?**

**Next chapter.**

**Why did Jiraiya so readily agree with Danzo?**

**For some reason, you all feel the need to paint Danzo with a binary good/evil scale. In the manga, Hiruzen himself (when reincarnated) regretted the fact that he shouldered Danzo with all the badness of the village. Whatever Danzo did, it was for the sake of the village. Even if it was sick, twisted, and malformed. The series didn't really go much into Jiraiya's and Danzo's relationship, but I like to think that Jiraiya was relatively well informed of the comings and goings of everything that made Konoha, Konoha. So I sincerely doubt that he would murder the only thing holding together the base of the city that houses thousands of people and protects thousands more for personal reasons. Lots of things went wrong because of him. The creation of Pain. Orochimaru. The Uchiha massacre. But he did those things with the thought processes of protecting the village he loved at the time. So yeah, he continues to live. Hate me. Loathe me. Write angry comments about me from your keyboard. I've got my mind made up on this one, you're not going to change it.**

**Why did Onoki settle for the nose of the Fourth?**

**Next chapter (kinda sorta)**

**Shikamaru's shadow possession?**

**Original Naruto anime, episode 58. You were all doubting my knowledge of this so much that I went back to check whether or not I dreamed that particular aspect of the jutsu into my personal reality. IT'S THERE! CHECK IT OUT!**

**That's about it for now.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	24. a lack of intel

Chapter 24

As of late, things have been weird for Naruto. For the last 72 hours or so, he was trapped in an endless cycle of getting knocked unconscious, missing something important that happened, then waking up to be told the whole story by someone close to him. It happened when he woke up to a fight betwixt two giant chakra constructs, when he woke up blinded, and when he woke up incapable of moving his body.

That last one was actually the most recent of his awakenings and it was also the one where he met Fu for the first time since he saved her from being killed in the raging body of Chomei.

His eyes fluttered open from their unconscious state to a fairly recognizable situation. He wasn't able to move. He wasn't able to make sounds. He wasn't able to talk.

Well, that's not exactly true. If someone put electric neurodes to his muscles, they would move. At the moment of his awakening, however, it was more along the lines that he lacked the will to do so. Or at least his body did.

On the plus side, it did give him ample time to think and assess his surroundings before making any assertions.

For one, he was back in the hospital. The rooms were too similar to the normal hospital and a very real light spilled in the window of the room for him to be in any sort of secret underground medic area bunker. That meant that someone saved his ass when he lost control of his body, and that Danzo didn't apparently have as much clout in the village as he told Naruto. That was good for him. Time seemed to have passed and that meant he could go visit Anko when his body chose to respond. He didn't know why he was ever so worried about her. Nothing could kill that chick. Death itself was afraid of her.

The sound of a page from a book turning sounded from his left. He didn't know who it was because his head wasn't tilted that way, but if he was forced to guess, he'd probably say it was Fu. She really liked reading. Whenever she wasn't training, asleep, or talking, she was reading. Sometimes she read while talking, somehow capable of holding two mental occupations at the same time, something he was immensely jealous of. Naruto wasn't illiterate by any means, he just didn't see the need to do it for idle pleasure. When there was time for reading, there was time for training, or playing video games, or talking to any of his friends.

Knowing that Fu was next to him was a welcome sensation. Over the course of the months that he knew her, she grew on him. At the current moment of his knowing her, he would definitely classify her as one of his precious people.

But that didn't matter now. He had to think of strategies to get the people of Konoha happier and less viable to throw out war cries. He also had to find out who helped him from Danzo's clutches, where the pervy sage was, what to focus on in his pursuits of becoming an OP character, and where Shikamaru was.

The time to focus on things was valuable to him for sure. It let him cool off his head from the anger that clouded it from being kidnapped by some sort of extremist jingoist. It also let him think of a few strategies that might work out in his business and empire building structures as well as an idea of what he wanted to focus on next.

As soon as he was done and over with the thinking, he tried to turn his head to the side. He was, after all, a man of action. Thinking only allowed one to do so much.

Fu didn't seem to have registered neither the opening of his eyes, the cognizance that followed, nor the turning of his head in her direction. She was really immersed in her book. There was no cover to it and it didn't have a title. It was colored beige and looked vaguely like his own guidebook. It couldn't be though. No matter what he did to it, or where he set it down, it always appeared back either in his possession, or his ninja bag. Fu wasn't nosy enough to go through his things. She also had many books that were similar to his own guidebook in either appearance or aesthetic. Coincidentally, she wasn't too fond of book covers or other superfluous details in the things she read, preferring for a simpler want of reading.

Naruto choked out a few gurgles. Among other things, his throat was sore and very very parched.

Fu looked up momentarily from her book and eyed him up and down. "How are you doing?" She asked monotonously before going back to her book

That was a bad sign. She wasn't a warm person, but never would Naruto ever think that she would act coldly in a scenario such as this one. If he was hurt enough that his body would be rendered incapable of movement, then he would assume that she would worry for him at least a little. The fact that she asked a reasonable question very detachedly meant that her annoyance outweighed her worry.

"C-Can I get some water?" Naruto asked through his weird throat.

From somewhere outside of his vision, she produced a tall glass of water, then put the book down and knelt by his bedside. She slid an arm under his back and brought him up into a semi-sitting position, then put the glass to his lips. It was kinda creepy in the way she did it without breaking facial expression, but Naruto wasn't complaining. He was too busy greedily and somewhat sloppily gulping down water.

When he was finished, she laid him back down and went back to her previous position of eagerly reading from her book. This confused Naruto. Perhaps she was just too enthralled with her book to produce any sort of meaningful emotion? No, there was no book in the world that was that interesting. But what could it be? Fu was quiet, but spoke her mind when she needed to. It wasn't like her to get passive aggressive. Whatever the case was, he had to focus on getting movement back to his body.

His latest ability upping allowed for him to cycle Mystic Palm chakra in his system without the need for handsigns or any actual medium of delivery. The potency was drastically reduced, but it did allow for him to slowly but surely get his muscles at least in working order.

Soon enough, he found out why his body refused to move in the first place. His only reasonable hypothesis was that with such a caustic mix of chakra in his system for so long, his chakra pathways and the very cells in his body were put under massive strain. Healing chakra, despite being of the healing variety of chakra, only exacerbated the already overworked system. It brought back complete control of his body to him, but not without hurting like a bitch in the process.

Eventually, he managed to sit himself up and tilt his head to Fu. Every muscle in his body ached, so movement not required was movement not accomplished.

"What happened?" He rasped out to Fu.

"You were being rolled in a stretcher to surgery when I woke up. I followed Jiraiya, who was following you at the time, out the hospital and to the kage administration. There was a surprise meeting of the kage there that wanted to tear Konoha apart like a carcass. I managed to persuade them not to be so harsh." She said all of this without looking up from the book.

"What!?" Naruto asked with a slightly raised voice. "H-How? W-Why? There were bijuu from other countries rampaging around. This wasn't Konoha's fault."

"I believe that the collective response was that since Konoha hosted the exams, all responsibility falls on it when shinobi of the other nations get killed or hurt."

That shocked Naruto to silence. "But… that's so stupid. Wait, how did you persuade them to not do it?"

"I asked."

"…"

"Accusingly." She added.

Naruto would have clutched his head in exasperation were it not for the pain that doing so would impart upon him. Finally, he asked what was wrong with her. "What's wrong Fu? You're… acting weird."

"Yes. I am." She said. "Because I was so heavily saturated in the chakra of Chomei when that seal got put on me, something went weird with my brain. I don't… feel… right now."

Naruto's eyes widened in horror. "Oh god." He whispered. "You can't… feel? This is all my fault. If I was faster-"

"Do not worry Naruto. Before you woke up, I talked with Yugito. This happened to her when she overreached her boundaries for the first time as well. Though at a much lesser degree. The chakra dispersed for her in a few days. But since there's so much inside me, it could take a few weeks."

Naruto did a sort of mini sigh of relief. "Is there anything else I should know?"

Fu reached behind her chair without looking away from the book. When she withdrew it, there was the flak jacket of a special jonin. She laid it on his legs on the bed. "You got a promotion to special jonin. Jiraiya came in earlier to give it to you, but you were still asleep."

Naruto was shocked speechless. So he opted to not speak.

For several seconds.

Then several more.

Even Fu, in her emotionally deprived state, took notice of his shocking lack of speech. "Would you like me to put it on you?" She asked as monotonously as ever.

"No thanks." Naruto said. A little pop up box appeared in front of Naruto.

_Congratulations, you have now been promoted to [Special Jonin] on the grounds of [Good Leadership]._

_The amount of people that you may have in your party is now [10]_

_Choose your party members wisely._

"Hey Fu?" Naruto rasped out. "What's that book you're reading?"

"The Naruto The Game: Guidebook. Are you filling this out in your freetime? Because if you are, then you must really get a better hobby. Like reading. Or even writing on a slightly more… less strange scale. You appear to have a predisposition to the creation of professional looking writing. Also, where did you find a computer and printer to get the book the way it is? To my knowledge, there aren't many of those around and they're pretty expensive to buy."

Naruto still didn't answer. Instead, he closed his eyes to the stress and happenings of the world. Too many things were happening in such a concurrent stream that he hadn't had any proper time to think any of it over. The important things. Not things about his empire or the game. Things like how or what Anko was doing. How Fu thought of him with intact emotions. How Tenten was; she seemed really conflicted the last time he saw her so there might be something wrong. What happened to the rest of the genin. Coping with the loss of the Third. How Hayate was doing.

But Naruto didn't really like thinking about any of those things. It wasn't that he liked to run away from such thoughts, he just didn't really like thinking to himself with no one else. He was an extrovert. If he had something heavy that needed to be expounded upon, then he would talk with someone that has his absolute trust.

But he didn't know where Anko or Shikamaru or the perverted sage was. He also didn't want to go down the rabbit hole of explaining exactly what situation he was in with the book with Fu in her logic oriented state of mind.

So he didn't.

He just waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited until a source of outside stimuli roused him from the torture of waiting.

Luckily for him, that came in the form of Shikamaru cracking the door open to make sure he wasn't interrupting anything, then walking inside once he saw that not much was happening. He was about to say something, but was beaten to the punch by Naruto.

"Hey Shika. I got a promotion. We can now have 10 members in the party."

Shikamaru's eyes widened in surprise for a fraction of a second as he realized that Fu was with them at the moment and that they were talking about the game, but he hypothesized that Naruto recruited her into the game. It wasn't really surprising for him. They spent more time together than most people who were stuck on the same genin team. She was also rather trustworthy if his analysis of her character was anything to go by.

Naruto's head started in realization. "Hey Fu, how is Anko? She's out of surgery by now, right?"

"The last I saw her, she was going back into surgery on one of those wheely beds."

This statement confused Naruto. "But you woke up after the invasion. Why was she being wheeled in then?"

Shikamaru took a chair and brought it over to the bed. "You mean you haven't heard?"

"No." Naruto said slowly and trepidatiously.

Shikamaru looked from Fu to Naruto with a sense of impending worry. "She got hurt again… and… well, no one knows if she isn't going to make it."

Naruto chuckled a little bit. It hurt to do so, but he just couldn't help it. "Nice one Shikamaru. No one can kill Anko. She's too… Anko."

Shikamaru took a few seconds to reply. "She was skewered in the stomach. I don't know the details, but along the wounds cancerous tissue began being made from some sort of rapid cellular division. It might get to some of her major arteries in a matter of days."

Naruto didn't chuckle this time. That… couldn't be right. There was no way she could die. "But… so… what?"

"Naruto. She might… die." Shikamaru said softly. "No one really knows how to treat that kind of injury."

Without really thinking of the consequences, Naruto threw his body off the bed and got up in a half-crouch. In the back of his mind, he know that he was in a mind meltingly large amount of pain. He didn't really care. The only thing he cared about was seeing Anko.

Shikamaru got in front of him and placed a hand on his shoulder. It was easy to stop him with how weak he was at the moment. "Naruto, you have to calm down. The doctors said it would take weeks for you to wake up. You shouldn't be moving.

"I don't- I don't- I don't." Naruto was in hysterics. "Shikamaru! I got a… a promotion. I'm a special jonin now. I can get 10 team members now. Go get them. I have to go. I have to see her." He said quickly, muddling up the words sometimes. Naruto managed to finagle his way out of Shikamaru's hold and made a bee-line for the door.

Shikamaru followed, but Naruto was out of sight before he could give chase. He sighed to himself and leaned against the doorway. Someday, Naruto was going to give him an aneurism.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around to see Fu's emotionless face with the guidebook in her hand. "What did he mean when he said 10 team members?"

"He didn't… tell you about the game?"

"No. The book was on his bedside, so I decided to read it."

Shikamaru clenched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. "Hey Fu," he finally said. "Do you want to… join our party?" He asked. There was no real way of knowing if he could recruit her, so he just went with his gut on that one.

A small blue window popped up in front of her. She looked down at it with her unchanging expression.

Her hand went over to it and tapped the [yes] button.

"Now tell me, just what is this game?"

00000000

Naruto didn't really know what to expect when he dashed off down the hallway looking for his teacher's room. Though it might have otherwise been extremely impractical and time consuming, Naruto just opened the doors to each and every room down the hallway until he found the one that housed Anko. Their rooms were situated near each other in the higher security section of the hospital. His because of the attempted kidnapping, and hers because of the new form of illness that she generated. Because of that, he only had to go through three doors before he found hers.

In fact, he didn't even recognize her. The only thing that made him stop and look in the doorway for longer than a second was the fact that at some point in her unconsciousness, she must have tossed a bit in her sleep. Her curse seal was very visible because of that.

Naruto slowly walked in and came to a stop next to her bed.

Her hair was down. It might have reached her shoulders if it weren't so disheveled. Her face was a horrible, gaunt gray. Any breath that she took in was pained and labored. She was sweating a little. It was common practice in the hospital to sedate patients in troubled states of unconsciousness. It must have worn off for her or something.

Naruto felt the burning need to do something. What it was, he didn't know. Lying in front of him was practically the corpse of his teacher. Her ashen face. Her parched lips. Her pained breath. All these things contributed to the overwhelming feeling of wanting to make her feel better. To make her Anko again.

Because she wasn't Anko at the moment. Anko was the paradigm of what he wanted to be. Someone who could see all the happiness in the world despite having had such a pained past. Someone who didn't particularly care what other people thought of her. Someone that sought the happiness that made her happy. Even it was strange. Someone who would fight to the death in order to protect the people that are precious to her.

This… body. This object. This thing in front of him.

It wasn't her. She was someone else.

In the moment of indecision that he had while trying to figure out what to do, his overtaxed body made the decision for him and collapsed into a chair. He winced and clenched his teeth and made fists with his hands until the pain faded. The physical pain. The immediately addressable pain. Whatever was wrong with his heart. Whatever he felt was broken inside of him… that was a completely different type of pain. Something he didn't know how to treat.

A great anger bubbled up inside of him. A foolhardy sense of protectiveness that only he could conjure in that moment. In that moment, while he stared forlornly at the unconscious body of one his most precious people, he made a promise to himself that he was not only going to make sure Anko survived the whole ordeal placed on her, but he was also going to find and kill the person who did that to her.

It was an unknown feeling to him, directly wishing to kill and hurt somebody that was not under mission parameters or out of self-defense. Well, not exactly unknown. He remembered feeling that once before. On the bridge in Wave. When Haku killed Sasuke.

So yeah, that's what he felt. That's what stewed in his stomach and clawed at his heart as he stared at the almost dead face of Anko.

He didn't know how much time had passed. Enough for the sun to move out of the direct view of the window. Enough for a nurse to come by and place more sedatives in Anko's IV drip. Enough for his body to become numb to the pain of moving. And enough for Jiraiya to come by and check up on her.

His face was as forlorn as Naruto had ever seen. It was strange seeing Jiraiya like that. He was a pervert, or someone that got serious sometimes, or maybe a little bit thoughtful in the right circumstances. He wasn't someone who got sad. He was someone who brushed away hatred for the pursuit of true peace and happiness. And yet, here he was, with Naruto, staring at Anko.

"Who did this?" Naruto finally croaked out.

Jiraiya didn't answer.

"Who-" Naruto's voice cracked. He had to clear his throat to continue. "Who did this?" He asked again.

Jiraiya took a deep breath. "You don't want to know. Just focus on something more important."

"Like what?" Naruto hissed. "I have to know who did this. I- I- I have to bring them to justice."

"And I'm telling you." Jiraiya said forcefully, in his role of commanding officer of Konoha. "That you don't want to know."

Naruto became silent on that particular point of conversation. "Is she going to die?" He asked.

"Probably." Jiraiya answered, his eyes never wavering from her pale face.

"Can I save her? Can she be saved?" Naruto croaked out.

Jiraiya took another deep breath. "Maybe. The Third is dead and I have to go find a suitable replacement for Hokage. I can't do it because of prior commitments and my spy network. But there is someone I have in mind for the position. My old teammate. Tsunade, the granddaughter of the first Hokage. She's also coincidentally the most skilled and well-educated medical professional in all of the Elemental Nations. If anybody could do something to help Anko, it would be her."

Naruto gripped the handholds of the chair and laboriously lifted himself into a standing position. "When do we leave?"

Jiraiya looked Naruto up and down. "You're in no position to go anywhere at the moment. Plus I have a few things that I need to take care of. If you're feeling better by noon tomorrow, I'll think of taking you with me to find her. Now get back to your room. It can't be good for you to be away from there."

The older man hopped out the window. Naruto stared at the body for a bit longer before he exited the room.

Whatever was going to happen in the coming days and weeks, Anko was going to survive. He was going to make sure of that.

00000000

Naruto walked in on a strange sight. The hospital room he had been occupying had been changed into only what he might describe as a mobile command center. A motley of people he of whom he had attained various stages of relationship with were sitting in a rough circle around a rectangular bed.

Naruto counted nine people and five canines. Shikamaru, Fu, Neji, Tenten, Lee, Chouji, Ino, Kiba, and Hana. Akamaru, the Haimaru brothers, and Kashikoi were all laying around in and around the room, doing idle dog and fox things.

Kashikoi ran straight up to Naruto and climbed up him with the help of her gripping claws. It hurt, but with how little he'd been interacting with the lonesome fox, he couldn't really call fault. She settled on his shoulder and made quick work of covering his face with saliva.

Neji looked disinterested at Shikamaru. "He's here now. We can test your little game."

Naruto walked around the room and grabbed a chair. He dragged it over to the circle and sat in between Fu and Ino. "Test what?" He asked quietly, still very much in pain from his body.

"I asked the book a few questions about the party system. It looks like you're only capable of inviting those who are equal or lower rank than you."

"You can ask it questions?"

"Yes." Shikamaru said with a smirk. "I also found out a few more interesting things, but that will be for later. I brought everyone together so they can be made a part of the game, but no one believes me. So I've been waiting for you to show everyone."

Naruto raised a singular eyebrow. "Couldn't you have just asked them to join? Are you not allowed to do that?"

"Something I'll get into later as well. Show them your ByakuSharingan for a few seconds."

Naruto grimaced. "I really don't think using chakra right now would be a good idea. I'm in a lot of pain-"

"Just a few seconds." Shikamaru pushed. "They won't believe me otherwise."

Naruto sighed, nodded, and molded his chakra around his eyes. Veins popped on his temples, which led to his eyes and his irises went red with floating tomoe. He looked around the assortment of people to show them the combination of different dojutsu. There was an assortment of different gasps of shock and disbelief. Neji, for one, narrowed his dojutsu activated eyes at Naruto.

"They're real." He said loudly, so anyone still having doubts could be certain.

"Wait wait wait." Ino said quickly. "Does this mean… This can't mean that… that game thing is real?"

Chouji munched on some of his potato chips. "This is weird." He murmered.

To quiet down the raucous genin and one chunin beginning to slightly freak out, Shikamaru hand whistled loudly. Once all eyes were on him, he calmly and succinctly told everyone the whole story of the game, seeing as Naruto was still in pain and didn't want to cause him any unnecessary discourse.

Throughout it all, he produced the various pieces of hardware that Naruto had collected so far to back up his story. Once he was done, he sat back and decided to begin answering questions.

Kiba asked the first one. "So… what? You want to recruit us for this game? I don't know, it sounds… like… bad."

"Yeah." Ino added. "You said it yourself. You know next to nothing about what's going on. This could be really really dangerous and we might not even know it."

Shikamaru shrugged. "I'm still on the fence about the validity of this whole situation too, but it's something that's not natural. Something that can affect us on such a large magnitude can't be brushed aside. This has to be figured out. I gathered you all here to do just that."

Hana looked around the room of teenagers and felt like the odd one out. "Why me though? I get that you can recruit chunin, but… why me? I fill more of an extremely specific support role."

"I needed someone I could trust as well as someone that might have more developed contacts that us genin. You being the older sister of Kiba fit the bill."

"Enough!" Lee said exuberantly, cutting off all other questions. "I shall join Naruto in this journey of blood, sweat, tears, and mystery." He stood up and did the nice guy pose. "You can count me in Naruto!"

Neji stood up after his teammate. "I shall join as well."

Kiba shrugged and stood up. "It's not like I have anything better to do. Plus I still owe you for saving Akamaru's life."

Hana stood up after her brother and clocked him on the head. "Don't think this is going to get you out of your chores. But yeah, I could help in between my shifts at the veterinary."

Chouji and Ino shared a look before standing up together. "I trust you Shikamaru." Chouji said. "You're smarter than me after all."

Fu stood up next, bolding onto her own guidebook. She didn't say anything. Standing was enough for her.

All that was left was Tenten. She looked at everyone indecisively. "I- I don't know if I can. I have a lot of things going haywire in my life right now. I can't add in something as weird and crazy as this. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to join." She stood and made to the doorway, looking back and saying "don't worry, I won't tell anyone," before exiting the room.

This somewhat saddened Naruto. More than anything, he wanted to help out Tenten with what was bothering her so much. He'd seek her out and ask her later though. Too much pain. Too many other things to do before then.

Hana did a quick head count. "Wait, other than Naruto, that's eight people. Can't we recruit two more people now that Tenten's left?"

Kashikoi yipped excitedly from Naruto's shoulder. He chuckled and ran his fingers through her coat. "Kashikoi has one of the spots taken."

Shikamaru looked at Naruto with a thoughtful expression. "Yes, but that brings up a good point. Now that Tenten has refused, we can recruit one other member."

"What about Hinata?" Kiba asked. "She's strong and nice. I doubt she'd tell anyone."

"I second that." Neji said.

"What about Izumo or Kotetsu?" Hana asked. "They're trustworthy."

"Where do ANBU place on this scale?" Ino asked. "They aren't really part of the traditional ranking system. We could try asking one of them."

"Can we get ordinary people with substantial job occupations to come in?" Shikamaru asked to himself.

"What about Sasuke or Sakura?" Naruto quietly asked.

"Sasuke isn't in the best of headspaces right now." Shikamaru said. "As for Sakura, we should probably go for someone who has a bit more clout in the village."

Naruto deflated slightly. He felt like he could argue the point of having his team members in the game. But he knew Shikamaru did have a point. He knew firsthand just what the curse seal did to people. It wasn't good. Sakura, he felt should be considered more. Especially since she'd been trained by Kakashi for the month before the third exam. Though in the end, she was the only child of a family of clanless shinobi. Her days ahead were probably too hectic to have to deal with the game on top of everything.

"We can figure out who we want with us after some more thought." Shikamaru continued. "Right now, Naruto, can you ask everyone to be a part of the game?"

"…Everyone… do you want to join my party?" He asked simply.

Various blue boxes popped up in front of everyone in the room except for Fu and Shikamaru.

Even with the reveal that there really was some sort of magic game happening using Naruto's eyes as proof, there was collective surprise at the sudden pop up of new matter around the room.

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "But wait, how can I invite everyone to be a part of my party now? I had to get you to ask to join my party." Naruto said to Shikamaru.

"That's right." The Nara said with a smirk. "If you're a rank above the person you want to recruit, then you can ask them directly. I can only guess that I'm being seriously considered for a chunin, because I was able to recruit Fu before you even got here."

"How did you figure that out?"

Instead of answering verbally, Shikamaru stood up and walked over to the bed where the original guidebook was sat upon. "I asked it. Guidebook, please tell everyone exactly how the party system works."

"_Gladly."_

00000000

A little bit outside the village.

Kurotsuchi was taking a walk.

Yup, that's right, she was taking a jaunty little walk down the road leading away from Konoha. Walking right next to her was her longtime companion Akatsuchi. Sitting on top of him was Onoki, her grandfather and the third Tsuchikage. He was holding the nose of the Fourth's monument above him with the help of his special weight technique. He was also very very pissy at the moment.

Kurotsuchi seemed very pleased with this fact. "What's wrong, old man? Having more back problems?"

Onoki grumbled to himself a little bit. "You seem really proud of yourself, granddaughter."

"I am." She said with head held high.

Onoki sighed in exasperation. "Why did you try to lessen their reparation? We could have had the Fourth Hokage's signature jutsu."

"Hey," She said, holding her hands to the sides of her torso. "You're the one that made the decision."

Onoki grumbled to himself some more.

"Hey, plus." She added. "Come o~n, look at me in the eyes and tell me that doesn't look hilarious." Kurotsuchi gestured to the deformed monument just within view.

Despite himself, he did crack a smile. "Every time someone walks into Konoha, they're going to see the pride of the village with a missing nose and know that Iwagakure got the last laugh."

"See, that's what this is about. We don't know how to train anyone in the technique, we even use it. We just want to make Konoha look like a fool. There's no better way than this."

"I like it." Akatsuchi said happily. "We can put the nose on our kage tower."

Onoki grinned. "I like the way you think."


	25. a branching of abilites

Chapter 25

The sun was clouded.

Water poured from the sky.

At early morning, it felt as dark as night.

Everyone was clothed in their mourning wear and all had dismal countenances.

Only several hours before, the funeral rights and speeches were made to the dead. Naruto's eyes were red. His body felt like it had just gotten through a several week long work out session. He had just been comforted by Iruka. And as people began to filter out of the service to return back to their lives, the rubble that was their houses, the individual people they had yet to bury, Naruto found himself near what he now considered a dear friend.

"Hey Shikamaru?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah?" Shikamaru was in as black of clothes as anyone else. Though he was less… impacted by the death of the leader than everyone else.

"Can we really trust everyone involved now?" Naruto was referring to all the people who as of then, was a part of the game. His throat hurt and he didn't feel like it was the time to be talking about stuff like that, but he had to know. It'd been eating him up since he woke up in the hospital with cleanly ironed mourning clothes at his bedside.

Shikamaru's facial expression didn't change. "The benefits far outweigh the consequences. Weren't you listening to the book's little speech?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "I was nodding in and out. It's pretty tiring recovering from having my chakra network burned out."

Shikamaru might have gotten more annoyed were it not a good point. "You have my word that we can trust Chouji and Ino. I'm sure that after living with them for about a month or so, that you're keener to trusting Kiba and Hana?"

Naruto nodded. "But what about Neji or Lee? I mean… like, Lee seems like a good guy and all, but we barely know him. I'm also not too sure about Neji. It wasn't very long ago that he was spewing shit about 'fate this' and 'fate that'."

"I caught him at the hospital visiting Hinata. He told me that after a little talk with his uncle, he feels like he's changed for the better."

Naruto shrugged. "Still acts like a cold asshole."

Shikamaru conceded to that point. "Anyway, Lee and Tenten were with Neji at the time and he insisted that they come with him to hear whatever I had to say. I guess he's trying to make his teammates see him in a new leaf."

"…Okay. We can trust Neji, and Neji trusts Lee. So we can trust Lee. Close enough. What about Tenten? Do you know what's wrong with her? She was kinda… out of it."

Shikamaru shrugged. "It wouldn't surprise me if she lost someone close to her in all the fighting."

Naruto waved off that particular suspicion. "I don't think that's it. She was just kinda… overwhelmed? I think? People in grieving are… different than that."

"Well, I wouldn't know about that. The Nara, Akamichi, and Yamanaka weren't hit as hard as other clans.

Naruto grunted. "So what now? Do we keep on with the whole sheets thing?"

Shikamaru had already gone over his plan with everyone else now in the party, so repeating it was a bit troublesome. But it couldn't be helped in that particular case. "We've got a few more options now in the way of helping people. But yeah, you should get the sheets and get working on them as soon as you can. I'm looking at an abandoned small warehouse in the middle of Konoha that looks like it would be an ideal operations center. There's room for a dojo, garden, botany lab, veterinary center, doctors office, surgeon room… just about everything we need. We can buy it with everyone's combined savings. It'll be a good place for us to earn more money and practice our fields."

"Why do we need a botany lab?"

Shikamaru opened his mouth to speak, but he was interrupted by Fu landing heavily right next to him. Her usually white clothes were spray painted a dull black and her face lacked any sort of emotion. Since she decided to make her clothes black at all at the very least meant that she was getting better.

"Are you ready for departure?" She asked Naruto.

Naruto nodded. He looked up at the sky as water continued to pour down and wet his face and took a really deep breath. When his gaze was even once more, there was a smile on his face and a new hope was in his eyes. "Yup. Are you sure you want to come with? This is an affair for Konoha to take care of and all."

Her head tilted to the side. "You are my friend. Until I get called back to Taki, I'm going to help my friend. Plus, I'm much stronger than you are as I am right now. You might need me to protect you."

It wasn't like he could argue with that fact. Being able to spawn an almost impenetrable armor all over her body as well as sprouting wings from her back was a very good power up. Something that he couldn't fight against. Especially not in his recovering state.

"Yeah, I guess you are pretty cool-"

"Do you need a ride?" She asked.

Naruto paused. "Eh… no, I'm good."

She got closer to him. "You're injured. Do you need help getting back to the Inuzuka's?"

Naruto stepped back. "I feel a lot better now. You don't need to force yourself to-"

Fu stepped up to him until their faces were almost touching. "Clench your stomach."

In the span of probably one and half seconds, six wings grew from her back and an exoskeletal armor grew all on her body. Spindly appendages whipped forward and encircled around him before he could even grunt out in surprise. They spun him around until his back was against her chest, then she jumped as high as she could and began flight toward the clan district.

Shikamaru sighed in relief. It looked like Naruto was getting back to his normal happy self. Something that everyone could gain from. Even as the blond in question was screaming in fright at the top of his lungs.

When he turned around to get back home to the Nara compounds, he was blocked by a woman in mourning. She had long purple hair and looked beat down by life. Large black bags were under her eyes, her face was pasty, and even her black mourning clothes looked grungy and haphazard. She was looking up as Naruto vanished into the sky. "You know Naruto, don't you?" She asked, not looking at Shikamaru.

He nodded unsurely.

She took in a deep breath and from the bodice of her clothing she produced a white and red ANBU mask. She put it on her face and addressed him. "Tell him that I and my squad are sorry that we weren't able to do anything to stop Orochimaru." Having said that, she vanished away, leaving Shikamaru staying stock still in surprise.

He shook away the surprise and decided to change mental directions. If Naruto was going away, then he was most certainly going to play.

00000000

In stark contrast with the rest of village, the clan head compound of the Inuzukas was bustling with activity. Hana was only allowed the bare minimum time at the funeral services before she had to get back to the over-capacity veterinary. Tsume was doing her best in directing the able bodied members of her clan to do the best they could to help the village. Whether that meant taking jobs, rebuilding structures, becoming the impromptu police, or even just walking around and trying to raise everyone's spirits. Kiba was nowhere to be seen, but according to his sister and mother, he was in a big hurry to get somewhere that he didn't divulge the name or location of.

Although throughout all of this, the house wasn't exactly very sad. It was busy, somewhat bristling, though it was still a home. A place of happiness. A haven that put Naruto at odds with how he should be feeling.

Currently, he was clad in naught but in his underwear and getting dressed slightly slowly compared to his usual speed as Fu watched. Of course he didn't want her to. But she wouldn't budge and he didn't get any help from Hana or Tsume in relocating her.

He hissed as he overextended his right arm slightly more than his sore muscles would allow, prompting  
Fu to jolt forward out of concern. Naruto held up a hand, keeping her in place. "I can get dressed on my own." He said sternly but with a bit of lightheartedness. It wasn't like she could help acting the way she was. The chakra was messing her head.

Slowly, she backed off as he put on his normal jumpsuit and ninja wear. Lastly, he sat down on the bed and checked his guidebook. Kashikoi jumped up on his lap. Considering there was a chance of the other housemates coming in without knocking (Inuzukas never knock), he didn't make the book speak to him. He flipped over to the merit section and began tapping on random merits, seeing what they needed for unlocking.

Fu sat down next to him and read over his shoulder. She didn't say anything, though it was comforting just being near her for him.

There were a few that sounded cool, like the Deadbone Pulse. It was a kekai genkai that allowed him complete control over his bones and calcium reserves. There was a note that said when he mastered it, he'd be able to make a sort of plate armor out of his bones and even create weapons out of his fingertips. It sounded really cool, but he didn't think it was worth 5 merit points. There was also the fact that he had to fight and survive a person who already has the kekai genkai. Then there were elemental kekai genkai, but he still didn't know how to raise his level in those without using his attribute points.

He stopped at mention of the Hiraishin. The Flying Thunder God jutsu made by the Second and perfected by the Fourth. Instant teleportation by use of a special sealing array. The thing that set it apart from other sealing techniques was that it required a specific mindset, extreme amounts of reflexes, and an inappropriately large intelligence. There were three strains called: Vague, Accurate, and Perfect. Neither were pre-requisites of the others, meaning if he wanted Perfect, then he didn't need the first two. Though the intelligence and reflex requirement was much larger for Perfect. He set a flag on Vague. Flag being an ability that auto leveled him up with the intention of allocating his points for him until he met the requirements for the merit. It cost two merit points, he needed 50 speed, 70 intelligence, and a 100/200 in sealing mastery. Compared to the other two, it was dumbed down something awful. Only getting him within twenty feet of the set sealing array.

Naruto could feel Fu's short hair brush against his cheek as she tilted her head in confusion. "Hiraishin? Why this one?"

Kashikoi jumped from his lap to the inside of his coat. Naruto shrugged. "It's useful. I don't think adding more kekai genkai would be any good considering I could go blind if I use my Byakusharingan for longer than a few minutes. Plus, I could just send a few of these seals around the world and teleport to any of them that I want."

Fu hummed. "This is good. Shikamaru did say that you were better off learning a motley of skills."

"He did?"

Fu nodded. "Are you positive that you are okay for this mission? Shikamaru explained it very clearly yesterday."

Naruto waved her off. "I'm awesome. I really am. Just a little sore, that's all. Anyway, what time is it? The pervert said to meet at the gates at noonish. And it's still raining."

"It is 10:13 A.M.. And I do believe punctuality to be very important. We should leave now."

Naruto put his guard up. "Listen Fu, if we're leaving, I really think we should walk. Or at least run across the rooftops, or maybe even-"

Spindly insect appendages grew from her side and encircled Naruto, bringing him snug to her side. She wrapped her arms around him hard and jumped out the window. Naruto's fading screams into the dark morning rain were the only notification that Tsume and Hana needed to know that he left for the super important mission Jiraiya had for him.

00000000

Middle of Konoha, a few hours later.

Shikamaru stared at the large decrepit building. It was generally box shaped, had three floors, and about the size of a larger office building. All floors had high ceilings and the roof was open and guarded with railings. The windows on the bottom floor were large and there were some doors wide enough for carts to wheel through and offload their products. Though it would fit his purposes very well, it looked really ugly. Water stains on grey concrete walls. The windows were encrusted with dirt. And a portion of the top corner of the building was repurposed by an Iwa nin for ammo in the invasion.

There was the sound of an umbrella unfolding behind him and the rain stopped for him. Ino was by his side and was wearing a slight raincoat in conjunction with her normal clothes. "So we own this now?" She asked.

Shikamaru nodded.

"It doesn't look like much."

"Right now, we need functionality over beauty."

Ino hummed. It was hard to understand what it meant though. Might have meant 'I suppose it's okay for now, but I really don't like it.'

"So, I get the garden up there, then a greenhouse next to it, then I share a basic lab with Hana and Naruto, then I get my own chemist set up?"

"That's the plan at least."

Ino sighed. "You know, this is really really weird. Why couldn't I have just been a regular kunoichi and lived a regular life?"

Shikamaru shrugged. "Because Naruto and I needed help. And other than Chouji, I feel I can trust you the most."

They stood in silence for a little longer, processing the rate of things in their own ways. "Why is it that everything around Naruto goes weird and screwy?" Ino asked.

Shikamaru shrugged. "I don't know. He's the main character apparently, so I guess that's it."

"Yeah, that's another thing I don't get. Explain to me again why he's the main character. Why aren't I the main character?"

"Other than the fact that it all started with him, he doesn't really have any specializations available to him."

"Okay, explain that to me in a way that I will understand. I never played videogames and that book explained it like I should already have a way too in-depth knowledge of how they work."

Shikamaru took a while to answer, trying out different ways of explanation in his head to best make sense of things to her. "In most RPG's made around here, the main character usually isn't too powerful. He's basically the jack-of-all-trades type of character. A lot of available ancillary skills or support jobs, but he usually has the most basic and least complex fighting style."

Ino nodded. "Why's that?"

"Well, in games, the main character is the ones you get first, and developers don't want to scare of new players by introducing complex playing concepts, so they don't. Suffice to say, you can't win the game with the most basic fighting style."

"So… that's where we come in?"

Shikamaru nodded. "Exactly. I checked my walkthrough. Naruto can't learn the Chemist skill, the Child of Nature skill, the Tank skill, the HDPS skill, the Special Healer skill, the Botany Skill, the High Flyer skill, or the Strategist skill. But we, from our specific backgrounds and foreknowledge, can. But we can't learn the tailor, cook, carpenter, maid, handyman, or any of those skills. We also can get a few other skills, like you're able to become a medic, but neither I, nor Chouji can. Chouji can learn Hammerjutsu, but Kiba can't. Naruto, on the other hand, can learn all he wants, just not the complex things."

"Okay… so, you brought me in because no one is a chemist."

"I brought you in because I trust you and you have the hypothetical ability to become a chemist. You still need to fill out your gardener, botanist, and biologist skill trees before you unlock that skill."

"What does a chemist do again?"

"In a word, Chemistry. You can make explosives, healing salves, poisons, anything really in the realms of science."

"Can't Naruto already do all those things with his various skills?"

"He will never be able to create nitroglycerin, which can be used to make explosions the size of entire villages, something you can do if you max out the Chemist skill. No matter how great a medic he becomes, he won't ever be able to make a salve that brings the dead back to life."

Ino's eyes widened. "What?!"

"The recent dead. No digging up corpses or anything, but yeah, with the Chemist skill, you can bring the dead back."

"That's… awesome."

"Yes, it most certainly is. I should probably go check out the insides, see how much we need clean and how we go about adding new rooms."

Ino followed along with him. "What about Chouji? What's his role?"

"Tank."

"What about Chouji? What's his role?" Ino repeated.

Shikamaru sighed into his palm. "You know, you could just play an RPG. They're pretty fun."

"Or I could save tens of hours and just ask you."

Those RPG's do take a while to complete.

"So Chouji has a skill called Bodyguard. He's up front and takes the brunt of the assault. His later skills allow him to ignore all physical damage completely and redirect chakra based ones if he sees them coming. In stark contrast, Neji is a Damage dealer. Capable of inflicting debilitating trauma on all people regardless of their armor already. His later skills make him faster than most would be and let him get in close to the most difficult of enemies and away when he's done his damage. Lee is a combat specialist that has equal parts Damage Dealing and Tanking."

Ino hummed and nodded in understanding. "So… wait. We've got taijutsu, some ninjutsu, medicjutsu, miscellaneous things like carpentry and tailoring… we need someone who knows genjutsu, right?"

"And kenjutsu, but Tenten's too busy to take part."

"Do we know anyone else who's good with genjutsu or kenjutsu?"

Shikamaru pushed open the doors of the building that was just recently bought by the party. It was pretty ramshackle, though it definitely looked a lot better on the inside than the out. He fished in his bags for a moment and pulled out a fairly long scroll. Unrolling it showed the Homeowner's guidebook.

"No we don't. The use of genjutsu and exclusive kenjutsu are pretty rare though. I think we might be good as we are right now."

Ino shook her head as she saw him eye the property stats up and down. "I don't think I'm ever going to get used to the whole 'new matter coming up in by ninja bag' thing."

"So don't. It doesn't happen much."

Ino started walking around the building, taking in the grunginess and visualizing what the whole place would look like once everything was all renovated. Honestly, it would look fantastic with just a little bit of remodeling, general clean up, and some natural light. "What about… that Hana chick? What's her use?"

"Her later skills include a skill that persuades all things of a biological nature to fight by her side, as well as being able to heal any of those said biological beings."

"And the mutt?"

"Mostly the same as his sister's, but more combat oriented."

"And Fu?"

"Fu's a bit tricky. I don't know how much we'll be able to see or interact with her after Naruto's mission, because she could be called back to Taki at any time now. But there were a few skills that seemed interesting."

"Like what?"

"After she completely is able to control the bijuu inside her, there are skills that include the use of her biological composition against the enemies. For example, she's got something she calls 'blinding powder'. It's something that she can do because of Chomei that includes the spouting of a large amount of explosive and very light refracting powder to hurt and disorient her enemies, along with flight and creating instant almost impenetrable armor. Her skills will enhance all of those in size, scale, and strength."

Ino whistled. "You sure she isn't the tank?"

"No, she's more the harasser. The person keeping the attention of the enemy." After a few seconds of thought, Shikamaru tapped a few places on the larger scroll and looked up expectantly.

"What's up?" Ino asked.

"…Naruto mentioned how the game seemed to imitating reality instead of the other way around. Reality would do something, and the game would interpret it in its own way. The Guidebook itself confirmed just that."

"So?"

"So I just ordered a roof garden, a basic tailor room, a basic dojo, and a bunkroom from the scroll."

"Do we have that much money?"

"Just about. We should start making more as soon as we can, but that's not the point. I'm wondering what's going to happen now."

"What do you mean?"

"Are there going to be people that show up and make the rooms for us? Are the rooms just going to spawn out of nowhere? Just, what's going to happen?"

"Well the 'hardware' just spawns in our ninja bags, something that obscures our vision. Maybe the rooms work in much the same way?" Ino suggested, proud of herself for giving such a well-thought out explanation.

Shikamaru nodded appraisingly. "You might be right. Let's get out and get back in. See if anything happens."

And so, they walked out and walked back in. what they saw were just boxes and boxes stacked on top of each other in little cornered off sections of the warehouse.

Shikamaru raised a single confused eyebrow and took out a kunai from his pouch. He slit open one of the boxes and pulled out a hard folding mat. The Nara put it on the ground and unrolled it. The mat had the basic inscriptions of a sparring mat.

Realizing his situation, Shikamaru groaned out loud. "They gave us the rooms out of nothing, but we have to put it together."

Ino whistled again. "So~, should I go get Chouji?"

"And Kiba. And Hana, if you can." Shikamaru said in the palm of his hand.

Where were Naruto's shadow clones when you needed them?

00000000

Naruto sneezed, then wiped away the resulting nasal fluid with his sleeve. The trees he was on the branches of zipped past as he, Fu, and Jiraiya made a good pace to a nearby gambling village, the first stop on their trip to find Tsunade, the gambler.

The blond Jinchuuriki sighed in a bit of over exaggerated childish petulance. The only reason that they were able to make such a good pace was because Fu refused to let him run on his own. There wasn't any change in his stats or any new status effects, but his reflexes still felt like they were shot to hell. That, and it pained him greatly to run up in the trees led to Fu holding him to her back with some of her insect parts.

It really was scary how much mileage she was getting out of that ability.

Jiraiya stated very early on that if it weren't for Fu, he'd have left Naruto at the gates. Naruto'd probably be fit as a fiddle the next day, but they didn't have the time to wait. Given the state they left Konoha, it'd probably dissent into a social upheaval from all of the drastically reduced facilities in a week at most. Their schedule was rushed.

Jiraiya somehow found the will to get right next to Fu and smirk directly at Naruto. "Why the long face kid? If there was a woman out there who'd offer to carry me everywhere, I'd marry her on the spot."

"Like there's any woman alive who can carry your pervy, fat ass." Naruto quipped smartly.

Jiraiya laughed contemptuously and reached over to pat Naruto on the chest. It might have been seen as a friendly gesture to anyone else, but to Naruto, it hurt like a motherfucker. Both he and Jiraiya knew that.

Naruto ground his teeth and snarled at the man. "Isn't there anything I can do while I'm like this? Like learning a new technique or something?"

Jiraiya strained another laugh out. "You've got a really self-destructive attitude don't you? I guess you can try to practice sealing, but anything else requires chakra. Something you can't use as you are right now."

"What about genjutsu? That doesn't require a lot of chakra, right?"

"No, but I don't know a lot of genjutsu."

Naruto quirked an eyebrow at the man. "How do you not have any genjutsu? Aren't you like, one of the strongest people alive right now?"

Jiraiya shrugged. "Didn't think it was important enough to learn, so I didn't."

"But- But… isn't genjutsu one of the three most important shinobi disciplines?"

"It has its uses, I guess. I've run into a lot of genjutsu users in my advanced experience and they were all a bitch to take down or get away from."

"So?"

"So what?"

"So why didn't you learn any?"

"I'm still alive, aren't I?"

"Well, yeah… but-"

"Listen kid," Jiraiya interrupted "People who specialize in any one set thing usually die very early on. What's going to keep you alive to a ripe old age is cunning, cowardice, and versatility."

"Versatility?" Naruto asked.

"Versatility" Fu said "Is defined as having multiple uses or easily being adapted to do an action something was not originally designed for."

"I know what it means." Naruto grumbled to himself. "But… what about Sasuke? He's got these super special awesome eye jutsu that do really specific things."

"He was born with that, and from what I'm told, doesn't really depend on them. What you really don't want to do is to use up all your time practicing with a metal sword only to get electrocuted by a lightning user. Hate to break it to you kid, but the more complex your fighting style is, the easier it is to counter, most of the time anyway. The only thing you need to make sure you don't die by a genjutsu user is to learn how to not get trapped in them and how to break yourself out. If they don't have anything effective, their main weapon is immediately gone. That's also the reason why I don't use very many elemental jutsu. By their design, they all have a counter to them."

"What sort of versatile techniques do you have then? The only thing I ever see you using is sealing, taijutsu, and summoning."

Jiraiya scratched his nonexistent beard in thought. "Well, I have a few others, but those are mainly it. The thing with sealing is you don't get a lot of use out of it when at the beginner or intermediate stages. At those stages, you don't have the mental acuity to use them in combat, relegating it to a supplementary use. At the master stage, however, the whole world is your oyster."

"Then what about all the clan jutsu? Those are super specific, aren't they?"

"The reason the people who use those jutsu grew into clan sizes was because they did something unique that was difficult to counter. They did uniqueness correctly and that's why they're still around. But as it stands, it's almost impossible to follow in their footsteps by creating a new, powerful, and hard to counter technique."

"Why's that?" Naruto asked.

"Hmmm… Most clans were made from a single person who had an anomaly with their chakra system, creating a kekai genkai. This gave them a fighting edge and made their chances to get it on with someone else higher. You know, evolution."

Naruto nervously looked to the side. "Yeah… evolution."

"Anyway, there were others that weren't born with kekai genkai and managed to make unique jutsu that usually involved some sort of internal chakra manipulation. Like the Nara or the Akamichi. They don't have any kekai genkai, just closely held clan jutsu secrets. That led to a specialization in a certain way of fighting. But if you look at any clan that made their way up with their uniqueness, you'll see that they got there with the versatility of their techniques. Simply, the use of shadows, or the use of your mind, allows for a lot of creativity."

"But at some point, they did it. Why can't I?"

"They did it though a lot of generations of failure, success, as well as being able to bounce their super-secret ideas with their clan members and not get the secret out there. They had time and patience. Something a single person can't do anymore. So stick to the things that are easy to manipulate."

"Like what?"

"Chakra shape manipulation."

"And what's that."

"Chakra shape manipulation." Fu said. "Is the external manipulation of chakra. The inside of your body does not bear the brunt of manipulating the chakra, just the outlet in which you want it to flow out of your body. To make any use of this, however, requires a very creative mindset with a very good understanding of the inner workings of chakra."

"That's possible? What can you do with it?"

Jiraiya, without stopping, created a spiraling ball of chakra in his hands and flippantly pushed it into a tree. It grinded through for about a foot before exploding and sending the tree crashing to the ground. "You can also make it smaller, or bigger, or wider, or squatter, or really anything based on the situation you're in. Versatility in the best form."

Naruto's eyes went wide. "Sooo, what about my bo staff? That's versatile. It can turn into a double scythe, shoot out poisonous senbon, turn into a spear, triple nun chucks… it can do lot of things."

"Yup." Jiraiya said happily. "That bo staff is quite the kicker you got there. What you really want though is the thing that let you even come on this excursion in the first place."

Naruto tilted his head in confusion. "Huh?"

"The little lady who decided to carry you with her bijuu powers. If you can get a handle on those, then no one in the world could stand up to you. There's a reason Jinchuuriki were created as weapons of mass destruction."

"But… the fox isn't exactly the easiest of people to get along with."

Jiraiya shrugged. "Just a thought."

Though it was a thought that Naruto pondered long and hard on. Versatility, huh? What could he do that would make his fighting style harder to counter?

00000000

At the hospital.

Sasuke ground his teeth in frustration for the umpteenth time that day.

Word got out pretty quickly that Naruto was promoted to special jonin. There were also the whispers that if it weren't for him, the already catastrophic destruction to Konoha would have been made worse.

Then there was the fact that he was actually a Jinchuuriki. Someone with a power so immense that it killed the Fourth Hokage, the man revered as the strongest alive in his time.

He didn't begrudge Naruto for having that power. But still… Not long ago, there was a significant gap in their powers. Not long ago, he could have beat Naruto with his eyes closed and his arms behind his back. Now though… now he wasn't sure that he could ever win against someone like that. Someone who had the knowhow to make a puppet staff and summon giant toads and had a fox familiar and received training from an insane person.

No, Sasuke didn't think he could beat Naruto as he was right then. But how could he?! How could he receive the power he needed to kill Itachi? To avenge his clan? To make the world right? He couldn't!

Kakashi had been too busy helping Sakura during the month's training and he was having trouble with his individual studies. It was starting to look like an incomprehensibly large gulf between their two abilities.

A sound woke him up from his musings. He got out of bed to investigate out the window, where the sound came from.

What he saw made him freeze in his tracks. Standing in the middle of the road was his brother flanked by a tall blue man. The two were facing Kakashi and the other jonin.

Sasuke saw Itachi glance up at him for a second. There was no change in facial expression, demeanor, or general attitude.

It was like Itachi didn't even accept his existence.

That's when he went berserk for the second time in about four days.

**AN/ Can someone please explain to me why Naruto getting party members is so bad? I've read other stories that did it and I thought it went well. Or do you just want to read about Naruto becoming the best and baddest badass ever?**

**Leave your ponderings in the reviews.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	26. a fight to anger

Chapter 26

Kakashi's lone eye surveyed the two missing nin in front of him. One was Itachi Uchiha and the other was Kisame Hoshigaki, two of the most powerful people in the world.

Kakashi saw Itachi glance somewhere out of the corner of his eye and bring his attention right back to him. Oldest trick in the book. Look somewhere else to divert the attention of the opponent, then run in and slit their throat when their attention was elsewh-

"ITACHI!"

Or not.

00000000

A day later.

Naruto grunted in frustration at the water balloon in his hands. The way Jiraiya blew the thing out using only his chakra looked so easy to replicate. Jiraiya's balloon exploded in a different way too. Looked all bulgy and angular before the ball burst. The best Naruto could replicate was a rotating disk that never blew up.

Naruto heard the crunching of leaves from behind him. This didn't distract him from trying to rotate the water in the balloon until it blew. Not even when the person stopped right next to him did he cease his endeavor. Not even when the person bent over him to view his efforts did he stop.

Though he did have to stop when she decided to sit on his shoulders.

Naruto, Fu, and Jiraiya were setting up camp in a border town inn where the legendary pervert decided to teach Naruto the rasengan in increments. Currently, our blond protagonist was in a sitting position in a forest trying his hardest to get the first stage of the spiraling ball right while an emotionally static Jinchuuriki sat on him.

"Hey Fu," Naruto ventured, "why are you on my shoulders?"

"I assumed you would direct your attention my way once I made my presence known. When you didn't, I assumed your senses were dulling and I decided to scare you. It doesn't seem to have worked though."

"I'm not ignoring you. I'm just concentrating." Naruto let the water balloon fall to the ground and stood up suddenly with Fu still sitting on his shoulders. "Watcha need?" Naruto asked. He then started walking in no particular direction.

Fu squeezed his neck with her thighs and retracted her chakra wings. "Hold on," she warned.

"Yeah yeah," Naruto replied. He wasn't even scared of the whole 'flying' thing now.

Fu buzzed above the air and rose to great heights in the forest. She burst through the canopy and alighted Naruto on a large maple, where she took a lateral position.

Naruto took out a deflated water balloon from his ninja pouch and offered it to Fu. "Can you fill it up?" Naruto asked.

Fu shrugged. She did a few handseals and brought the lip of the balloon to her mouth. Her cheeks filled rapidly with water, which she spewed into the hole of the balloon. Before it filled up too quickly, she took her mouth away from it and spewed the rest of the water in her chakra system to the ground. Fu did it up in a knot and handed it back to him.

"Thanks." Naruto murmured. He began to spiral his chakra around in the ball idly while looking up at the clouds in the sky. "So what did you want to talk about?" Naruto asked.

Fu deigned not to answer immediately, allowing Naruto more time to fruitlessly rotate the water in the balloon. The green haired girl stared at Naruto's frustrations for a few minutes, noting everything Naruto was doing. Eventually, she brought out her cupped right hand and wordlessly asked for the ball.

Naruto stared a bit sourly at her hand before giving her the ball.

She held it both hands with the hands faced parallel to the ground and closed her eyes. Her face didn't exactly scrunch up in supreme physical concentration, but anyone could see the fact that she was focusing quite hard on the ball.

It began to flatten itself from all the centrifugal force in the water. It began to get flatter and flatter until its height was that of a thin pancake.

Then it popped and sprayed water across the both of them.

They stared at the empty space where the water balloon was for a few seconds.

"Yeah~" Naruto drawled, "I don't think that's what's supposed to happen."

Fu nodded in agreement.

Naruto handed her another water balloon and watched it get filled much in the same way as the first.

He took it in his hands and stared at it. Then stared at it some more. Then he stared at it some more.

Then he pocketed the water balloon for later.

The two friends waited in an amicable silence for a short while. It was nice for that time, just staring at Nature. Though, Naruto characteristically grew agitated at not doing anything and decided to stare at Fu for a bit. Even before she got all weird in the head, she was generally a strange person with strange tendencies. He couldn't figure her out. Her temporary emotionlessness was only exacerbating his understanding of her.

She didn't look back. Instead, she contented herself with looking up at the beautiful sky. "Naruto…" she started softly, "do you… love Anko?"

"Yeah, why?" Naruto answered immediately.

Fu sort of jolted a little bit, though Naruto might have imagined it. "I… I see."

One of Naruto's eyebrows quirked. "Fu, I know you're all emotionless because of the chakra in your brain, but seriously, what's up?"

"I… I don't know. Why, or should I say, how can you love her?"

Naruto straightened out his sitting position and gave Fu a weird look. "Because she took time to teach me, because she taught me well, because she cares about me, because she's nice behind all that weird psychopathic stuff, because she… because she noticed me."

"She's a little old for you, don't you think?" Fu asked straightly.

Naruto's look towards Fu got even weirder, until he realized a misunderstanding in the conversation, one that he blushed and spluttered out refusals prolifically towards. "Nononononono. It isn't like that. I love her like I love a sister. Like… a _good_ sister."

"I see. And what of Tenten, do you love her?"

"I-I mean… I _like_ her. She's a nice person and actually helped me out when she didn't need to. She's good for talking to. She's pretty and strong. I don't love her though."

"But you love Anko?"

"There's like… more than one type of love. If a person is in a plausible category for one type of love, they can't be considered for another. I don't romantically love Anko. I still love her. But I might romantically love Tenten in the future, once we talk when I get back to Konoha and all that. So that means I can't love her like I love Anko."

Fu stared off at the clouds for a while. "I hope you know that that made no sense whatsoever."

Naruto shrugged. "Eh, it's the best way I can explain it."

"What about Sakura? I heard that you took up seduction just because you love her."

"Who told you th- it was Anko, wasn't it?"

Fu nodded.

"Goddamn it. Okay… I… I don't even know anymore. I used to be completely in love with her back in the academy, but it's been weird lately. Team 7 hasn't been together all that much since the start of the exams 2 months ago. The whole videogame thing seems to have kicked up a notch… I don't know. Too many things are happening in quick succession and I haven't been able to process it."

Fu nodded and didn't say anything after that.

After waiting for a few seconds with no follow up questions from the enigmatic verdette, Naruto closed his eyes and gained a mischievous smirk. "What about you? You have to have some sort of crush back in Taki."

Fu deigned not to answer.

Naruto leaned a little towards her and snapped his fingers a few times near her ear. "Oh, come on. I know you can hear me. You're not allowed to get me to say all those weird things without you giving me anything."

Finally, Fu turned to Naruto with her blank stare. She didn't speak for a solid 10 seconds, though Naruto could see the gears moving in her head. "I…" she started "am fourteen years old."

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, I'm thirteen."

"I am also a ninja, a profession that may end up with me dying tomorrow."

Naruto nodded unsurely. "Errrmm, so am I. what's your point?"

"Normal people usually wait until their later teenage years before they can come to terms with such complicated feelings as love. Yet, you're very open about it."

Naruto shrugged. "I guess."

"I am at terms with it too."

Naruto's eyebrows rose. "Really? Wh-"

"I wish to try something," Fu stated, interrupting Naruto's train of thought. She swiveled her body around so she was facing Naruto directly. He took the cue and turned to her.

Fu reached her hand out and daintily grasped the back of Naruto's head, then, before he could figure out what she was doing, she brought her head inwards and planted a kiss on Naruto's lips. It was chaste and didn't last long, but it definitely gave a voice to the feelings she had been having trouble voicing.

"Naruto, I really like you." She stated as emotionlessly as ever.

The blond in question had eyes open wide in surprise and his mouth was still parted slightly from the kiss. He didn't really know what to say. There were a lot of things he was thinking, though. Like how he could have missed such obvious cues even with Anko's tutoring, or how he should have checked the people section of the guidebook more often, or how he _really_ should have put in more effort to talking to Fu before.

But he didn't say anything.

He lost concentration and fell off the tree.

He also hit the ground.

Hard.

00000000

The next afternoon.

Naruto woke up with nary a physical infliction. Not even a headache, and he could have sworn that he hit the ground with the back of his head first. Taking in his surroundings, he came to realize that he was alone in a reasonably well sized hotel room, though it was different than the one from before.

'Wait, why did I fall again? I was doing the ball exercise, then I was talking to Fu, then…' Naruto got out the Futon he was tucked into and made a mad dash to the guidebook.

_What (Fu) thinks about you: Understanding, fun, charming_

_Fu has (a large amount of) romantic feelings for you. She is (quite) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: People who understand me and what I've got through._

_Base stats: mostly unknown_

_Affinities: mostly unknown_

Naruto might have slapped himself in the face were it not for the fact that he was too busy mentally berating himself for not checking the people section of the guidebook more often.

Thirteen is not, and has never been, a good age for understanding. Drastic changes to physical, mental, and emotional faculties, hormones running wild over the body, and a lack of perception that experience gives you.

It didn't have to be said, but Naruto didn't know what to do. On one hand, he still liked Tenten a lot, on the other, Fu liked him enough to toss aside her inhibitions and just go for it.

Or, wait… it might have just been a side effect from her emotionless state. Naruto felt like his id wanted to stuff that he didn't want to do all the time. If his ego and superego were gone, he might do weird things too.

As he was pondering his weird situation, he felt something come up from the back of the room and trot over to him by way of his chakra senses. He found out real quickly after obtaining that particular skill, that at his current level, he could only sense things without thinking about it when they moved and he wasn't constantly in a crowd of moving people.

It was a strange feeling to be sure. It took a while for him to get used to just _knowing_ that there was someone coming up behind him.

Naruto tugged Kashikoi onto his lap and cuddled her ears and face. No matter what was going on with his life, Kashikoi always seemed to be able to perk him up.

He could really see why people loved dogs so much.

Kashikoi wasn't really a dog, but the fact remained that Kashikoi acted much like a dog would when with Naruto and that was enough for him.

Naruto sighed and looked down at the fox directly in the eyes. "What do you think I should do?" he asked the canine, not really expecting any sort of answer.

Kashikoi yipped a few times and ended her thoughts with a bark and a growl.

"But I don't know if I like her like that." Naruto said. "She's been a great friend and has always had my back, but, it's just…" Naruto trailed off.

Kashikoi shook her coat and began gnawing on Naruto's hand playfully.

"I don't know. She's nice, pretty, supportive, she knows what I went through and I guess she went through something similar, and… and I guess I like her. But I'm not sure if I like her like that."

Kashikoi continued the gnawing of his hand.

"I'm not sure why I don't like her like that-"

Kashikoi did absolutely nothing to make Naruto stop mid-sentence.

"I guess you've got a point there. Okay, I'll tell her." Naruto stood up and tucked the small fox into his coat. Just as he was about to leave the room, his chakra sense went off from directly behind the exact same time that something fell from the ceiling in the room and made a light 'thumping' sound.

Naruto jumped back and did a 180 at the same time, withdrew a kunai, and faced the new threat.

The new threat that had green hair and orange eyes.

The kunai in Naruto's grasp fell to the floor and stuck there on its tip more out of shock than anything.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"I wasn't aware that you understand Kashikoi's speaking pattern on such a high level," the level-headed girl commented.

"I-I don't," Naruto stuttered out. "I was just talking to myself throu- how much did you hear?" Naruto quickly switched subjects mid-sentence.

"All of it," Fu stated. "When you were beginning to wake, I hid myself on the ceiling."

Naruto looked at her with the most questioning of looks. "But… why?"

Fu shrugged. "It seemed like the correct thing to do."

Naruto held up his hand and screwed his eyes tight, he then took a deep breath and opened them. "Okay, few questions."

Fu didn't say anything, but Naruto could tell that she heard his words and was ready.

"Where are we?"

"Jiraiya got done early and decided to get back on the road. When I told him what happened, he laughed loudly and delegated me to carrying you to the next town with him. We didn't expect that you'd be out for an entire day."

"Entire day?- okay, whatever. Next question: where's Jiraiya?"

Fu shrugged. "The last I saw him, he was chasing after a woman with the hopes of sleeping with her."

"Sounds 'bout right. Okay, did you… did you mean what you said yesterday."

"Yes."

"I thought you were still left not feeling anything after you soaked in Chomei's chakra."

Fu shrugged. "It was always supposed to be temporary, but it's wearing off a bit faster."

"Have you… always felt this way about me?" Naruto asked.

"For a few weeks. When I heard you were with Tenten, I was slightly crestfallen, though I didn't allow it to show or get in the way of our working together. When I heard you were no longer together, I decided to act on it the next opportune time. But then you were in intensive, then Shikamaru recruited the others, then the funeral, then we set out, then you were alone in the forest. I acted when you were in the forest." Fu said all this with perfect clarity and little to no embarrassment.

"Okay… so what now?"

"The answer depends on what you were going to tell me."

"Oh, right. Uhmmm… wou-" Naruto stopped himself and whirled around to the door. Outside the hallway were two very strange chakra signatures. The chakra stored in their systems were larger than even most jonin class ninja and one had something strange attached to it.

Not that Naruto knew about astrophysics, or anything of that ilk, but if he did, he would call that object a black hole. With the ability to sense chakra in small scale, he also gained the feeling of chakra being all around him. Only, there was no chakra in that particular spot. Actually, it was more like he could _feel_ there was chakra in there; he just couldn't _sense_ it. Naruto would never be able to explain the phenomenon in words because of the fact that chakra sensing in just that, another sense. Trying to explain it to someone who didn't have it would be like describing red to a blind man.

None of that mattered in that particular point, because they stopped at Naruto's and Fu's hotel door and politely knocked.

Naruto looked to his bag and withdrew his bo staff, then made a split second decision that might have been rooted in more worry than sensible forethought.

Using his chakra, he activated a mechanism inside and slid it apart lengthwise. He was left with two equally tall blades that were made up of half blade and half handle. They looked more like batons with blade extensions than anything.

He handed these to Fu, who looked at them questioningly.

"Oi! Open up. We just want to talk." An uncouth voice came from the door.

"You take the big guy with the big thing. I'll take the little guy." Naruto whispered to Fu, who nodded in return.

It might have seemed dickish to slate her with the big guy, but Naruto accepted the fact that Fu was at a major advantage with her ability to grow appendages out of her body like it was nothing. Though he was worried with what the big chakra singularity was, so he left her with his bo staff-turned-double blade.

As soon as Fu accepted the fact that there was going to be a fight, the door was blown to shreds by what looked like a huge club wrapped in bandages. In walked a man who looked like a shark and what looked like a carbon copy of Sasuke, only older and a bit more weathered down.

"If you would just make this easy," the shark man said "and come with us, then there won't be a reason to cut your legs off… either of your legs off?" Kisame looked to his partner. "Is that the Nanabi?"

Itachi nodded. "It would appear so."

Kisame chuckled. "Looks like we just hit bank. Now if you'd just come with-" His statement was interrupted by a flying purple missile that shoved him out of the room and onto the street below.

Itachi looked at this happen disinterestedly, then looked at Naruto without changing expression.

Naruto took out a kunai and closed his eyes. He hadn't really tried fighting someone using only his chakra sensing.

Looks like then was just about as good a time as ever.

00000000

Back in Konoha.

"Is everyone okay with the plan?" Ino asked.

The crunching of potato chips paused momentarily. Chouji stopped to clear his throat very loudly. "Ah-em… why are we doing this again?"

"Because I need the Devil's Trumpet," Ino answered.

Hana sat up just a little bit straighter. "And the Devil's Trumpet is a… flower?"

"A very, very, very poisonous flower," Ino answered.

"And the reason you can't do it alone," Kiba said "Is because it's too dangerous."

"Correct again."

"But the point remains," Neji said. "Why are we going to help you? I barely know you. I admit, this… videogame nonsense has improved my combat ability greatly in only the span of a few days, but the only reason I'm here is because your teammate asked one of my teammates to become a part of the group, and I decided it was worth investigating. If I go with you, I'll be losing very valuable practicing time, any time that could go towards the rebuilding of Konoha, or any actual missions that will bring money into Konoha."

"You were listening to the book, right?" Shikamaru asked "practicing in our personally acquired dojo increases your learning rate of new Taijutsu moves by 25%, and nets you experience when challenging a fighter in a spar. You only get physically stronger or physically faster when you level up and even though you've been leveling up fast, it's going to get slower. Truthfully, we don't really know what to expect when we go to get those flower samples. It might be bandits, constructs made by the game, or even just wild animals, but fighting actual to-the-death battles will reward you with large sums of experience, more than you could ever get while sparring."

"And what of the reconstruction efforts?" Neji asked "As it is, my clan and I are helping day and night to rebuild the apartments, hospitals, and relocate the homeless."

Shikamaru pointed to the host of Naruto clones silently working in the corner with Hachiman to produce high quality, rain-proof, comfortable, and durable sheets of cloth to be used for impromptu bedding, housing from rain, and other such things. "I think Konoha will be fine from what we're already doing to help."

"I understand-"

"Listen Neji," Shikamaru interrupted. "There are no gardens, green houses, or habitats in or around Konoha that has the Devil's Trumpet. If cured and fused correctly with other ingredients, it could be turned into high class cures and specialized medicines that would go for large sums of money if sold outside of Konoha, which will be reinvested into Konoha's infrastructure. You'd be more help protecting Ino from danger while she got those flowers in the Land of Birds than if you were rebuilding an apartment."

"Can I just mention," Kiba stated "That this is all really illegal. We can't go outside the walls without an official statement or mission to go on. It's not allowed."

"Thought you didn't care about the rules" Hana murmured.

Before he was able to retort, Shikamaru brought up another good point. "Also," he said "this mission will be a good time to get to know each other better and maybe get some formation practice in. With your specializations, it will be a must… and… where's Lee?" Shikamaru asked.

"He went on a mission and didn't tell me about it." Neji said.

Shikamaru rubbed the bridge of nose. "Okay, doesn't matter I guess. The border patrol is more lax with shinobi not having official documentation now that most of the efforts are on rebuilding and getting money in. We'll get by, especially considering we're all visibly from very prominent clans. Let's get ready to go and meet in front of the north gate in an hour. If anyone asks where you're going, just say you're going on a mission and can't tell what it's for."

They all generally dispersed after that. Shikamaru watched them walk out or away or to their own little cornered off section of the warehouse on their own. In hindsight, it might not have been the greatest idea to throw together a motley of people with unique combat and non-combat roles and worry about how they got along later.

But at least they were becoming more sociable. He knew that Hana especially wasn't too fond of being surrounded by teammates much younger than her, though she was finding common ground with Ino, so that was good.

He walked out of the building and headed home with his face buried in the property management hardware. It would take a while, but Konoha was going to have to be rebuilt. Brick by brick, dollar by dollar.

And with their help, it was going to come back better than ever.

00000000

Back with Naruto.

Naruto laboriously brought up the kunai miraculously somehow still in his grasp and leveled it at the general area where he thought Itachi was. Nope, using chakra sensing alone would not allow him to accurately fight an opponent of such high caliber as Itachi. Or at least not yet.

With the way his chakra sensing was then, he could get a good read on Itachi only whenever he moved. It really sucked for him because when Itachi was moving, he was moving at halfway to the speed of light. Naruto couldn't counter, he couldn't sign off jutsu, he could barely even stand at that point.

No, Itachi was not one to be trifled with. And it didn't even feel like Itachi was trying to bring him down and in. It was like the Uchiha was toying with him. Naruto didn't even know why he would do something like that.

From his little forays into the guidebook looking for good merits to get, Naruto was very often sidetracked by reading the different abilities that the Sharingan had. At its higher stages, there came the ability to put people in unbreakable genjutsus, catch things on a black fire that would never go out no matter how wet it got, or even spawn a giant monster armor thing that had a wide range of offensive and defensive capabilities depending on what the person wanted at the time.

Needless to say, it was really really awesome.

Naruto didn't know too much about Itachi or what he was capable of, but he did know that looking into the eyes of an experienced Sharingan user, Mangekyo or not, would be potentially fatal to him. So all he had going for him was to wait for either Fu or Jiraiya to come save him.

And that particular point really frustrated him. He was sick and tired of waiting for people to just waltz by to protect him. He was sick and tired of his friends getting hurt for his sake. And he was sick and tired of all the confusing hormone inducing situations he was put in as of late.

And all of it was that goddamn book's fault. Sure, Naruto might never have ever had a prayer against Itachi without the book giving him awesome bonuses, but the fact that he'd been practicing taijutsu, and kenjutsu, and bojutsu, and sealing, and sensing, and puppetry, and forging, and tailoring, and even had the goddamn two greatest kekai genkai in the world and even then was just a toy for Itachi to bat around at his leisure.

Nope, Naruto was sick of it.

But being sick of being in the situation he was in wasn't going to get him out of it.

He just had to figure out how to get away from Itachi, save Fu, find Jiraiya, find Tsunade, get Tsunade back to Konoha to save Anko and Hayate, and save Konoha from fiscal destruction.

And not die, hopefully.

It was a tall order to be sure, but Naruto was a man of action. And men of action always had a plan

00000000

With Fu

The crowd of civilians dispersed the second the battle began betwixt the two beastly ninja. By the time she hit the ground, her exoskeleton was out in full blast, her mouth was leaking blast powder, and her six wings were all buzzing furiously.

Kisame, despite getting hit in the torso by a giant flying chakra construct, wasn't exactly looking worse for wear. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying the fact that his newfound prey was taking the engagement so seriously. He laughed a little bit and unwrapped the sword's bandages, revealing a navy blue scaly mess.

"Looks like Samehada is eating well tonight." He muttered in Fu's general direction.

She paused and looked up to the sky, then back down. "It's nearly mid noon," she said "the word 'tonight' wouldn't be used in this situation."

His smile went downwards. "It's an expression," he said.

"It's an expression used incorrectly and very stupidly."

His eyebrow twitched a little bit. "I'm going to enjoy flaying you alive."

Fu crossed her newfound bo swords in front of her and crouched down low to the ground. "And I'm going to enjoy impaling you to the ground."

Kisame got his grin back and without a moment's notice, jumped straight at the girl swinging his sword like a bat. It came down with the force of a boulder falling off a mountain, but Fu was able to maintain her footing. The swords blocked the blow, though it took all her strength to do so, so she wasn't able to block the kick sent straight to her abdomen.

It knocked her back a little and let the club out of her swords' reach. It hit the ground hard, sending spiderweb cracks all along the pavement. He used the moments reprieve to launch the club forward for a lunge at her torso, but she merely had to kick up into the air to avoid it.

She fell down aiming for his head with the heel of her foot, but with a startling amount of strength and precision, he lifted the Samehada directly in her flight path. She hit the sword with all her might and even managed to stun him a little bit. He quickly regained control and swung the sword in a horizontal arc. She was thrown from the top of the sword and impacted a wall with a thud.

Kisame rushed in and stabbed her with the Samehada. She was hit with enough force to blast through the wall and several others before stumbling to a stop a few streets over. Usually, with her exoskeleton, she felt a lot of pressure when hit, but never any real pain. Now though, it felt like her chest and feet were on fire and slick with sweat. When she got up painfully to her feet, she realized that it wasn't sweat her chest was moist with; it was blood. Her feet too, were bloody and cut up.

The scary thing was, she didn't even know why. Her exoskeleton should have held through even that force. And it didn't even break. It was just gone with no preamble.

Fu glared at the weird club sword thing. Either Kisame, or the thing he was wielding, had the ability to suck up her chakra. It was the only explanation available to her. Even when she undid the armor on her body, she could feel the very distinct feel of bijuu chakra going back into her body.

She shook her head and redid the armor over her chest and feet, this time making it more streamlined and nimble. It probably wouldn't take any amount of sustained hits, but she needed her mobility and that ability of his would make it obsolete anyways.

Fu could now appreciate why Naruto gave her his bo staff when he knew she could create water swords out of nothing. Kisame would probably just suck up the chakra from her swords and make her nearly defenseless just like that.

Instead of waiting for him to make the next move, she burst through the holes her body had just made and headed straight for him.

His eyes widened in surprise as he hid his entire body behind the sword's great length and girth. Instead of feeling a muted impact of a bug against his flyswatter, the air whooshed around his hair when Fu avoided the sword completely and veered around him.

She threw one of the swords at him, but he just batted the thing away thanks to his reflexes. She used the opening created by the first sword to rush in and take a stab at his open legs. Samehada came crashing down and knocked the blade away before it could get nearer than a foot, but that left his face open.

With both her swords incapacitated, Fu relied on the only thing she had left; her mouth.

Light refracting blast powder hit his face with the force of a fire hose. He stumbled backwards and blindly swatted at Fu, though she was just too quick for him to pinpoint. She landed a few pinpoint blows around his torso and thighs, trying to hit any vital organs or nerve points to no avail. It was like his body was structured completely differently to what a normal human be.

Fu jumped out of the blinding cloud and sent one of the very few fire jutsus his way. It didn't have to hit him. It just had to ignite the blast powder.

The entire area went up in an explosion.

Thinking he was dead, she flew back to where Itachi and Naruto were, hoping she could still help the situation.

Although her ability to feel and comprehend emotions was coming back, she didn't feel too strongly in any situation. It was just enough to convey an awareness to the mood of the situation.

But when she saw Itachi hovering Naruto's truncated body with the Uzumaki's head in his clutches, well, let's just say that's when she got really emotional for the first time since she was six.

00000000

Back with Naruto

He still couldn't see, but he could feel Fu's presence come up to the hole she made just minutes prior. There was only a flash of Itachi's eyes to warn him before Fu went berserk.

All control she'd been showing the past few days went down the drain. Even not being able to see her, he could feel the malignancy of the chakra turn from being tolerable to making him want to puke in its presence.

Her purple exoskeleton went a crimson, all humanoid appearances went down the drain, and all that was left of her face were vague eye and mouth shaped jagged white holes.

She screamed a violent, stomach churning scream. Her wings buzzed with an intensity to drown out the thinking in his head. Her claws and mandibles thrashed around in the air and just as she was about to leave a fist sized hole in Itachi's chest, Samehada flew through the air behind her and impacted her back.

All the chakra was gone in an instant and left Fu on the opposite end of the room clad in her bubbly red Beast Mode version 1.

Kisame clambered up to Itachi and picked his sword back up. He didn't sound too good. Breathing heavily and grunting in pain with every step, even without seeing him, Naruto could tell Fu did a number on him.

The two flanked him without even saying a word edgewise. Both wanted the exercise over and done with. That much was certain.

If Naruto weren't so insanely worried about Fu and his own situation, he would have laughed. It was one thing to threaten him and his safety. They just hurt one of his best friends. That meant he was going to make them pay.

Even if that meant going blind.

His eyes shot open to the world with 360 vision and stage three swirling Sharingan. He looked from one ass-stain to another, deciding which one he'd rip to shreds first.

He suddenly decided he direly wanted shark fin soup that night, so he directed his strange, menacing gaze to Kisame.

Then he growled.

**AN/ Heya, I'm not dead, just a little injured.**

**It's hard to write when you get the pad of your finger flayed off, just saying.**

**By the by, I've been wondering if I should refer to Naruto as a blond, or a blonde. I tried checking the internet, but it wasn't really helpful. Tell me what you think I should I refer to him by in a review.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	27. a foxy tale

Chapter 27

Kisame blinked his red, teared-up, powder encrusted eyes a few times. For a reason he couldn't explain, it looked like the blond kid got a new set of eyes. It might have been a trick of the light, or maybe just that the combustion powder was powerful than he thought.

Then the kid growled at him.

"Kisame." Itachi said slowly. "I think it's time to pull out."

Now that was strange. Kisame had never heard Itachi talk like that. It was almost like the second to last Uchiha was afraid of the kid. "Whatever" Kisame muttered, "let's just get-"

Kisame was suddenly rendered incapable of speech when a fist shrouded in red ripped off the lower portion of his face. Let's just make one thing clear here; even though Kisame was heavily injured, he was also an S-rank ninja. He dodged the swipe. It was painfully easy to see coming. Even though he dodged the swipe, even though he tried to shove the blond to the side, even though he backed his face away at the last second, the kid still managed to get in his guard and claw a good portion of his face off.

The shark man backpedaled violently and landed on floor close to the closet. Naruto was on top of him faster than white on rice, but something caught his attention and he dodged to the side. The black flames that came from behind him, which he shouldn't have been able to see nor sense, hit the wall with a big WHOOSH.

Naruto's strange and scary-looking eyes became directed solely on Itachi, who had his Mangekyo out and raring to go.

"What… what are you?" Itachi said, perplexed as he had ever been.

"The guy who's going to kick your ass." Naruto whispered before charging ahead at the Uchiha.

They met in the center of the room and immediately started trading blows. Even though Naruto used brash words before, he wasn't going full steam ahead. He knew there was a speed and strength difference between him and Itachi, so he reverted to flexibility and guile to guide him through the fight. It even worked for a little bit, until Itachi managed to grab him by the ankle and toss him up into the air and forcefully out the ceiling. Not the most elegant of moves on Itachi's part, but it got the job done.

Itachi hadn't considered that when Naruto landed back in the room that he'd have burning marks spiraling across his skin like fire that settled into a black tattoo-like visage.

So at that point, Itachi had to fight a hormonally charged Jinchuuriki with the first stage of the beast mode, the first stage of the cursed seal, somehow had an amalgamation of the two most powerful dojutsu on the planet, and was seriously pissed off because his partner hurt his girlfriend or something.

Itachi decided on a tactical retreat.

He spewed black flames on the ground between him and Naruto and made to exit out through the nearby wall. His escape was impeded by the two beautiful blue beasts of Konoha entering through the wall Itachi was attempting to bust out of with an impeccable sense of timing, all the while shouting "DYNAMIC ENTREEEE!"

Wrapped around Gai's shoulders was the unconscious and very large body of Jiraiya. After the half-second it took to take stock in the situation passed, Gai tossed Jiraiya to the side and looked down, Lee following in suit. "In the name of Konohagakure no Sato, you are wanted dead or alive for your crimes. Come forward quietly," Gai stated as authoritatively as he could.

Itachi dashed backward to escape the taijutsu experts and was punched in the abdomen by the enraged Naruto when his attention was turned. It knocked the air out of his lungs and sent spittle flying out of his mouth. It was also the first full contact hit Naruto had gotten on the elusive nin.

Itachi hit the wall close to the closet and fell in a lump next to Kisame. Naruto, in his scary form, pounced on the man and tried to get a few face punches in. Before he was able to, reddish orange flames grew from Itachi's back and condensed into some sort of bony armor. Naruto's punches hit the armor with resounding thuds, managing to put cracks and strain into the strange armor, but never getting into the gooey center.

Gai and Lee didn't exactly know what to do, so Gai jumped forward and grabbed the unconscious Fu away from the scene and laid her next to Jiraiya, while Lee tried to get stock of the situation without turning his eyes upwards.

A hand of red bone grew out opposite of where Naruto was punching and grabbed what remained of Kisame. Another hand grew out and swatted Naruto away, who hit Lee like a sack of high velocity flour.

Itachi jumped out of the building and darted away before anybody could stop him.

Naruto tried to get up, but spewed blood from his mouth and collapsed. His eyes returned to normal, the curse seal retreated back into itself, and Kyuubi's chakra dispersed.

Kashikoi trotted out of the closet and fearfully nudged him with her nose.

Everyone not capable of moving themselves were grabbed by Gai and brought down to the street while the black flames consumed the rest of the hotel.

Gai got back up and tried to spot the fleeing Uchiha, but saw nothing. Instead, he looked back down to the three unconscious, one frazzled, and one animal combatants.

00000000

A while away from Konoha.

Neji rolled under the bear and sent palm strikes to its ankles and knees. A huge hand sprouted from behind him and hit the bear with enough force to tumble an apartment block. After that, all manner of syringes and glass jars hit the bear. The jars exploded some sort of chemical and the syringes self-plunged their contents into the large mammal. It swayed back and forth a few times before falling to the ground and creating a dust fwoom.

Neji stood back up and dusted himself off.

"Is that the last of them?" he heard Ino call out.

About twenty feet away, Hana, Kiba, and their animal companions spiraled into view. All were covered in chunky blood and breathing quite hard. Shikamaru also stumbled into view a little bit later breathing harder than the Inuzukas.

Neji tracked the world around them with his Byakugan and nodded. "That's the last of them."

Ino fell back and sighed a great big sigh of relief.

Neji came up and hurumphed next to her. "Is your flower around here?"

"One sec," she said absentmindedly, pulling out her book and checking their contents. "Oh hey, I grew two levels, and… plegh. My Int and Spd are the only ones that got bigger. What about you?"

Neji curmudgeonly took out his book and glanced through it. His eyebrows went uncharacteristically higher than normal. "Four levels," he murmured. "Both my Flexibility and Speed went much higher up." To test this out, he stretched his body and around and did in fact notice that his limbs easily went farther than what their limit used to be."

Chouji walked up to them with his nose buried his notebook as well. "I got more Strength and Chakra Capacity."

Shikamaru didn't even bother checking his notebook while the two humans next to him were studying theirs.

"Hey, I got more Strength." Kiba said enthusiastically, even through his exhaustion.

"And I got more Speed." Hana said, the Haimaru brothers barking their own joy.

They all grouped together and surveyed their surroundings. Things were like they were because just minutes prior a grouping of bears ambushed them and did their best to rip them apart. The party split apart and killed the bears as best as they could.

"Anyway, we should probably skin the… bears?" Hana asked confusedly, looking around. "Where'd they go?"

Neji got a knowing look and checked behind him. The bear that had been dead on the ground just seconds ago was nowhere to be seen.

Shikamaru clicked his tongue. "Either someone is playing an elaborate trick on us, or this is just another mechanic of the game."

"So what, vanishing wildlife is just another thing we can chalk up to the book?" Ino asked.

"Looks like it," Shikamaru murmured. "I'm going to guess that there are other enemy spawns depending on where we want to go. Is the Devil's Trumpet near here?"

"I saw a few plants that matched the description a field over." Ino sighed once more, snapped her goggles in place, and got up to stretch. "I think I can pull off the bookie look, but these goggles are something I'm not too fond of."

Just before they left to go on their excursion, one of the Naruto clones presented them with outfits that matched their descriptive roles. Each of the outfits had huge, or at least comparatively huge, boosts in stats, so even if they didn't like the aesthetic that the clothes had, it wasn't something they were ready to debate over. Ino got something like a mad scientist outfit, complete with a white researcher jacket that had pockets aplenty and a set of goggles that could protect against nearly all caustic substances; Kiba got an baggy outfit over a skin-tight under-suit with razors along the edges of his forearms, while Akamaru got a harness with a few pouches on the sides; Hana's outfit was practically a medic smock with enough cuts in it to make for feasible combat wear, while the Haimaru brothers each got a semi-customized tool set in their harnesses; Chouji got a bulky red suit with patches of metal armor here and there, most notably a belly piece that had his signature cheek swirl on it; Shikamaru's outfit now more closely resembled his father's, with the exception of a lot more loops for holding scrolls on the inside and out; Neji's was a loose Hakama that allowed for great movement and, much to his chagrin, had a picture of a flying swallow on the back. Naruto swore that the bird helped the stats, but Neji didn't think that he completely believed him.

Ino trotted off to pick her flowers and everyone started pitching camp. It was evening for them, after all, and no one wanted to run home under a cover of darkness.

"So," Chouji started "what do these flowers do again?"

"Hyperthermia, dementia, tachycardia, strange and violent behavior, amnesia, photophobia, and death." Shikamaru rattled off.

"Oh," Chouji said, somewhat surprised "and we're getting this to sell?"

"And cultivate," Hana added "sounds damn useful."

"Wait wait wait," Kiba interjected "eating those flowers makes you freeze up?"

"Hyp_er_thermia, not hyp_o_thermia," Shikamaru said "it makes your body defense system go haywire and start heating up to burn something that's inflammable. Eventually your body just breaks."

"Yikes."

"Mmhmm, in fact-" Shikamaru was suddenly cut off by a shriek that came from where Ino trotted off to.

All party members burst into action and jumped into the clearing, leaving the tents half set up and the fire still in its kindling stages. What they found was somewhat anti-climactic.

Ino was standing stock still upright with little bottles of newly made petal extract put into loops on her white lab coat and seeds in carefully made jars for reseeding. But that wasn't the important part. There was what appeared to be a needle or thorn of some sort sticking out of her forearm. It looked neatly torn from a nearby bush, which had similar needles all leaking a sappy fluid. Her eyes were glazed over and she was drooling a bit.

"The colors," she whispered.

"Oh goddammit," Shikamaru stated into his palm "now we have to deal with a high Ino."

Said Yamanaka fell to the ground and started playing with mind fairies.

"I just hope Naruto's going through something just as vexing right now," Hana said as she began to drag Ino out of the clearing by her armpits "Bears, videogames, and now: high teenagers. I better be getting overtime or something out of this."

00000000

"Watcha lookin at?"

Naruto stared at the being that just audibly spoke those words. He rubbed his eyes, cocked his head to the side, and patted it on its head to make sure he wasn't seeing an illusion. Nope, not many genjutsu could simulate the feeling of hair quite accurately enough to make it seem real.

"You're startin to freak me out, kinmate."

Kashikoi was humongous. She grew from being pup sized to being adult-and-a-half sized in little more than three hours, two of which he spent unconscious. According to Gai, she yurked up a piece of undigested sharkman throat and began to 'metamorphosize'. Though something was a bit off about her, Naruto noticed. He reached behind her ears and ruffled her neck. It was faint, but he could feel lines where there were skin flaps, things that felt an awful lot like gills.

"I hope you're not gettin into bestiality or anything," Kashikoi said, backing up a few inches.

She could also apparently speak.

"You can talk," Naruto stated unbelievingly.

"I could always talk, you just weren't listenin."

"But… before you were speaking fox. Now you're speaking…"

"I'm not speakin any differenly than before. You just understand now. You know what they say, 'relationships require communication.' Now we have loads of communication."

Naruto took out his book and flipped over to Kashikoi's section. When she managed to discretely gnaw off Kisame's throat when Naruto was distracted with Itachi, she easily quadrupled her level and got two new merit points; Foxtongue and Rebreather. The first one allowed one who spent a lot of time with and around foxes to understand and interpret their language, while the other allowed for extended excursions in underwater environments. She got the first when she hit some level cap and the other appeared to be something unlocked from killing Kisame.

Naruto sat in thought for a bit. "Okay, so when I took down Bee and Gyuki, my experience was divided up a lot because a lot of other people helped. So I guess it makes sense that you made so much progress after dealing the killing blow. But I didn't know you could get merit points. And there isn't a page that I can see where they list all the possible ones that you can get."

Kashikoi did the fox equivalent of a shrug. "Maybe it's auto-assigned, like my base stats."

"Yeah, maybe- wait. You know what's going on with the videogame?"

Kashikoi gave him a queer look. "Of course. That's all you ever seem to be talkin about."

"So you could understand me even when I couldn't understand you?"

"That sounds about right."

Naruto squinted his eyes at her. "… I'm never picking up your poo again."

"Well maybe if you took me out more often, I wouldn't need a litter box."

"Use the toilet!"

"No! That's a human (and sometimes cat) thing. It's degrading."

"But you're smart enough to use it. Plus, toilets are so much better than shitting in the woods."

"That's just because you humans have those fat flaps surrounding your anus. Shitting in the woods is awesome!"

Naruto leaned back and winced a little from the soreness. It wasn't anything too bad. He wasn't KyuubiCurseSealByakuSharingan'ed for very long. Not long enough to actually hamper his physical state at any rate. After he woke up, Gai told him of the situation and promptly Dynamic Exited the building. Fu and Jiraiya woke up before him and went to secure a perimeter. Fu (according to Gai) looked like she got over most of the emotional hang-ups and seemed to be back to normal. Jiraiya didn't want to talk about why he was unconscious in the first place. And Gai and Lee went back to Konoha after making sure they were safe and Itachi and Kisame were properly driven off. Naruto and Lee had a little side conversation before they left. He seemed to be quite enthusiastic about the real-life videogame and was very happy with the advanced progress he was making.

Our blond Uzumaki directed his thoughts back to his fox. She really was quite the handsome little creature now. Her features were sharper, her orangish coat was traded for a russet color with reds and blacks mixed in and a pure white underbelly, and she seemed a bit more reactive. Though that might just be because Naruto could understand her.

"You called me kinmate," Naruto said "what's that about?"

"You're my kinmate. Simple as that."

"I meant, what's a kinmate?"

"Fancier way of saying kin."

"So I'm your brother or something?"

"Or something."

"Not master?"

"Why would I call you master?"

"Well… because… I saved you from the pound."

"The pound? That wasn't the pound and I wasn't going to be put down. Anyway, I'm at about the same maturity level as you anyways."

"But you're 1."

"Foxes mature out of childhood quickly. Actually, all canines do."

Naruto hmmm'ed for a second, then brought his hands out. "Come here, I wanna try something."

Kashikoi trotted into his arms without a second thought. Naruto then started to try and stuff her into his jacket's inner lining to no avail. She just got too big too suddenly for her to fit in there anymore. Naruto laid her back on the ground. "You can't fit in my jacket anymore."

"Well that's obvious," she murmured.

"Do foxes get big enough that people can ride them? Like Tsume and Kuromaru?"

She shook her head. "Nah. I think I can get a little bigger, but bein the size of a largish normal dog is just about the limit."

"And…"

"Hm?"

"It's just… didn't you grow like three times your size in three hours? Are you… okay?"

Kashikoi got to her feet and did a few experimental trots through around the room. She jumped up and down a few times, much to the amusement of Naruto. And she experimentally pounced on an offending dust bunny, all done with no difficulty at all.

"Nah, I'm fine," she said.

Naruto stared hard at her. Previously, he'd treated her more or less like a pet animal with the ability to support him in combat. But now that she could speak, and sounded like a normal human female, she seemed more like a person. Even if she was just a fox.

Kashikoi noticed his hard stare and stared hard back at him in response. "Somethin else you wanna say?"

"Nothing much, just… you've got a really pretty voice," Naruto said a little bit under his breath.

Kashikoi backed up again. "Okay, now I'm not so sure you were telling the truth about being into bestiality."

"It's not that," Naruto said unflinchingly "just that up 'till now, I saw you more like an animal. Now you're more… human."

Kashikoi trotted up to him and laid down on his lap. "Yeah, well, so long as you're aware that we're different species and that I'm incapable of being physically or mentally attracted to you, how about we keep it that way?"

Naruto began to absentmindedly rub his fingers through her coarse backfur while checking his guidebook. He hadn't checked the main page before, but he did get quite a few things from leveling up.

_You have beaten (Kisame Hoshigaki)_

_Total experience gained: 5,000,000_

_Opponent half defeated: -2,500,000_

_Help from (3) people: /6_

_(1) Ally drastically injured: /2_

_Total experience gained: 208,333_

_You gained (6) levels. You are now level 37. +30 base stat modifiers, +240 attribute stat modifiers, +3 merit points._

"Huh, no achievement?" Because he set the Flag on the Hiraishin perk, the base stats automatically filled his speed to 50 and his intelligence to 60. Not enough to get the perk, but he was getting there. Plus the addition to his ability wasn't too bad either. The Flag also brought his sealing mastery automatically to 100/200. He used the leftover attribute stats to bring his medical ability to 300/400. He knew that Shikamaru said to only use attribute stat modifiers to bring his already high stats to maximum because finding a way to bring those skills naturally to max would be tough and levels would be harder and harder to obtain as life went on, but with him getting so many points, he felt that he had to be getting really good at being a medic really fast. There wasn't any time to be training.

To the best of his knowledge, whenever a skillset had the option learning rate, it pertained to how quickly he was able to learn individual jutsus, while ability pertained to how much he was able to get out of it. More medical ability meant he saw more stuff when using Diagnosis and he healed others easier and quicker when doing Mystic Palm. Even if he had 10000000/10000000 in God Ninjutsu ability, it wouldn't help him if he didn't know any God jutsu.

Naruto flipped over to the merit section and found the Mangekyo Sharingan to be unlocked because he 'survived an encounter with an Uchiha wielding the Mangekyo', but he didn't have enough merit points for it. He didn't think he'd get it either. He already had enough limitations on using dojutsu in their basic form. For all he knew, using those eyes might just accelerate the process. As for what to do with the rest of the merit points, he flipped through the merit section looking for a badass merit to buy. Even though his flag was set on the Hiraishin, he knew he'd have to level up at least four more times to get the pre-requisites, so the four merit points he had, he could do whatever he wanted with.

Just as he began to narrow down the list of what he wanted, Kashikoi perked up suddenly. "People're coming," she whispered.

Naruto's head darted up. He'd been too engrossed in the book to realize, but his chakra sensor was going off in accordance to what Kashikoi said. There was one smaller signature with an abnormality on her shoulder blades and a much larger, more imposing signature.

Naruto gulped and reached around for his retrieved staff. If it was a fight those were looking for, it was a fight they were going to get.

**AN/ Hey, I'm back. How do you feel about Naruto's progress?**

**Oh yeah, and thanks for the feedback on the blond vs blonde. Curse the French for making English even more needlessly complicated. I'm just going to refer to him as a blond(adjective) blond(noun) from now on, for consistency's sake.**

**Kashikoi's going to be an actual character from now on. Not just a mascot type.**

**I've got so many funny conversations between Naruto and Kashikoi in pre-production in my head. So look forward to those.**

**Oh, and if you have a question, SEND ME A PM.**

**If you have a general comment, insult, compliment, or constructive criticism, WRITE ME A REVIEW.**

**I'm both too lazy and too dumb to keep track of questions in the reviews and comments in the PM.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	28. a lake monster's death

Chapter 28

In a certain place at a certain time.

The cavern Itachi was in was ovoid and spacious with a single very large stone hand poking up out of the ground. It wasn't meant to be a place where he could turn in and help seal away one of the tailed beasts. No, its purpose was more along the lines of general communication between team members who were working apart and yet together. Itachi was cross-legged on the floor with Samehada next to him making strange gurgling sounds. Eventually, a rainbow hologram ignited into existence right in front of him on the middle finger of the stone hand pedestal.

"You have something to report?" it asked in its strange, raspy voice.

"Mission failed," Itachi said without lifting his gaze.

"…Are there any more details you wish to impart upon me? How did you fail and what happened to Kisame?"

"Too many things went askew. The Nanabi Jinchuuriki was there with him and provided support."

"As far as I know, the Nanabi is still an unskilled juvenile. Surely you and Kisame were enough to take care of those two. Were there any others who interfered?"

Itachi shook his head. "No. The Kyuubi was given another power-up along with the bijuu's powers. The Curse seal. It had to have been Orochimaru when he invaded."

"Even with the Curse seal he was able to defeat you?"

Itachi opened his mouth to speak. Almost like he wanted to tell the Leader about the other thing that he thought he witnessed. The other thing that must have impossible. The other thing that he knew his eyes were lying when he saw. No one other than the Uchiha could awaken the Sharingan; and he knew for a fact that Kushina never cheated on Minato with an Uchiha. There was no way Naruto could have those eyes save him stealing them from someone else.

And there were the vein bulges to account for as well.

"Well?"

"K-Kisame got his throat ripped out by what appears to be an animal, if the injury marks are correct. Samehada ate what was left of him. I don't believe he's well and truly dead, but it was touch and go for a while."

"And what of the Jinchuuriki?"

"What about them?"

"How were you defeated? Even if there were two, even if they both had the power of the bijuu, even if one had the curse seal, neither should have been a match for you alone even if they worked as a team. What excuse is there for a critically injured partner and a very beaten down failure?"

"The Uzumaki. He was strong."

"Was it a technique? A hidden power? Strength? Speed? Cunning? Intelligence? How. Did. He. De. Feat. You?"

Itachi gulped. "It was entirely my failure. Negligence on my part that got Kisame…" Itachi looked to Samehada as it continued to do whatever it was doing to Kisame "in the state that he's in."

"Were you able to at least debilitate either of them? Cripple? Dismember? Render insane?"

"They both appeared to be of sound mind and body when I absconded."

Pain allowed for a fetid silence to descend over them.

"I'm disappointed in you Itachi." And with that, Pain's hologram dissolved into nothingness.

Itachi took in a deep breath and breathed it out slowly. He gripped Samehada and slung it over his shoulder. There were other, more defensible, places for him to take shelter in while Samehada either fixed Kisame, or just finished digesting his body.

Either way, things weren't looking too good for the third-to-last Uchiha.

00000000

On a road.

"Ha! Got it!" Naruto exclaimed as he held the remains of the water balloon in his fingertips.

"Nice job brat. How'd you figure out the rotation technique?"

"I got the inspiration from Fu's wings. She's able to get lift off and is capable of turning direction and speed on a dime because her wings can rotate in any direction, not just up and down."

Jiraiya sweatdropped. "So how did you get the rotation from that?"

"Same general principle. If I rotate one-dimensionally, I can't do as much. If I rotate in all the directions, I can do a lot more."

The pervy master shrugged. "What works, works, I guess." He reached into his robes and pulled out another balloon, which he puffed out with air this time. Handing it to Naruto, he said "Now see if you can do it without any water in it."

Naruto sighed explosively and continued his exertions.

"You know," Kashikoi started "you could probably get better… watcha call it? Chakra manipulation if you practiced multiple things at once. Like tree climbing and chakra rotation."

"Hey Jiraiya, could I get better at chakra shape manipulation if I did other chakra exercises along with it, like water walking or tree climbing?"

"That's more for chakra control and you'll never need it."

"Why not?"

"The only people who need chakra control to that degree are sensors and surgeons."

"I'm practicing medicine."

"The difference between a combat medic and a ninja surgeon is the difference between a good pizza and fine dining."

"I don't understand your analogy."

"Doctors are supposed to fix and heal people on the sidelines. Combat medics are supposed to make people more comfortable as they die, while trying not to die in the process."

"But I can heal people. I saved Fu when I got her out of Chomei during the invasion."

"She had a clogged throat, from what the reports said. And you didn't even use medicine chakra."

"What about Yugito in the invasion. She had a floating rib that I fixed."

"Could've done it with traditional medicine."

"Or what about Akamaru? He was really tossed up back in the forest of death."

"Did you use traditional medicine? Maybe I should be a bit clearer. If you can't fix it with traditional methods and you can with chakra, then you're a surgeon and you need the control. Otherwise it's just better to focus on something that has versatility. Like the rasengan."

"Well I guess that answers your question," Naruto mumbled over to Kashikoi.

"I was just trying to be helpful!" she replied in an annoyed tone.

Jiraiya's eyes drifted to the wayward canine. "Mind telling me how your fox grew three times as big in the few hours that I didn't see her? As well as how you're able to talk to her?"

Naruto shrugged. "Dunno." It wasn't really a lie, at least not completely. Leveling shouldn't increase the body size of the character so much. Sure, if he put a few points in strength, he got more muscle mass, but he hadn't grown taller than a few centimeters in the time he got the book.

Jiraiya narrowed his and let the matter drop. He'd brought it up before and got much the same response, though he could tell Naruto was hiding something, even if he was telling the half-truth.

"So what happened with your girlfriend? She still upset after you clocked her in the face?"

Naruto got an embarrassed expression and turned his face to the ground. He should have realized back at the hotel that the people who were coming to meet him were Fu and Jiraiya back from their rounds. Fu got a pole to the face before he realized who opened the door.

"She's not my girlfriend," Naruto mumbled out.

"Oh? So you rejected her? Intrigue."

"I didn't reject her," Naruto snapped defensively "I just realized that I'm a little too young to be dating. Don't care if I die tomorrow. I'm fine with life as it is. Maybe in three years or so. After a long training trip or something."

Jiraiya clapped the blond on the back. "Life's short kid. Especially for us. But I get where you're coming from."

"Wasn't really looking for your approval, you dirty old man," Naruto said in deadpan.

"He's right, ya know."

"And I don't need consultation in romance from a fox."

"You need lots of consultation in romance especially from a fox," Kashikoi said with a mischievous look on her face.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you have trouble picking up on people's various physical and verbal cues that clue you in to something else going on in their heads. You even had your guidebook to give you the answers, and you still got blindsided by buggirl."

Naruto's eyes widened and shot his head around to look at Jiraiya, hoping to god that he didn't hear what she just said about the videogame. What he found was Jiraiya absentmindedly flicking a booger over to a shrub. Jiraiya realized the extra attention and, not embarrassed at all at having been caught red-handed in picking his nose, asked "What?"

"D-Did you just hear that?"

Jiraiya narrowed his eyes a little and grinned real wide at Naruto. "What, from the fox? I don't speak fox, dummy. What'd the little lady say?"

"I said that you're an (expression redacted) who (expression redacted) that needs to (expression redacted)(expression redacted)(expression redacted) all the way up your mother's (expression redacted)(expression redacted) you incestuous little (expression redacted)."

"Woah, where'd you get that language from?" Naruto asked, taken aback.

"The surroundings," the big fox said.

Jiraiya went on to ignore his student's and his fox's interactions and take more interest in the surroundings. Just as he did that, he saw something troubling on the horizon that piqued his interest. It looked like a large bird and since it was semi-silhouetted against the sun he couldn't get any detail from the thing. It might just be a passing eagle, but it could also be a surveillance summon. Jiraiya narrowed his eyes and looked down to warn Naruto. The second he tore his eyes away from the bird was all it needed to swoop down, grab Naruto by the shoulders, and take off again.

Jiraiya was left blinking at the cloud of dust that somewhat resembled his student and his fox. That bird was so fast in taking the kid that he didn't have any time to react. Jiraiya withdrew a scroll from inside his clothing and began furiously scribbling seals that would aid his pursuit, until he realized that the bird was brown-skinned with green hair and bug wings. And that she was laughing as she flew up high in the sky with a screaming Naruto tucked under a bit of her bug carapace

He sighed in relief and tucked the scroll back in his wardrobe. "That could've been really terrible," he mumbled to himself.

00000000

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH- oh, it's just you," Naruto remarked, looking down at the swiftly disappearing Jiraiya.

"Yup, just me," Fu replied cheerfully from her position of power.

"AND- AND- AND- AND FUCKING ME!" came from Kashikoi as she tried not to lose both her mind and her grip as she clung to Naruto's leg for dear, sweet life.

"Oh hey Kashikoi, didn't know you grabbed on," Naruto said, as if flying at halfway to the speed of mach 1 were as normal as taking a shit.

She scrambled up his body with help of her tail extension jutsu and no small amount of biting to squeeze her large and cumbersome body into Naruto's jacket and coil around him like a fat, furry snake. Naruto tried to stroke her through the jacket, but with the wind pushing so hard against his body, it was hard to move his arms.

"So what's up Fu? Planning on killing me?"

"Nah!" she yelled through the wind "just looking for a good time."

"That could be taken a few different ways, you know."

"I meant it in one specific way!"

"I'm starting to get worried."

"As you should be!"

Fields of blurry green forest zipped by underneath his feet and eventually gave way to mountainous terrain. Naruto looked up and around him, trying to get some sense of where he was by judging the distances of landmarks, but he'd already been moved too far away from any in his vision to get any good grasp of distance. All he knew was that he was going fast up a mountain in the cold embrace of carapace protruding from Fu's legs.

Neither he nor Fu knew why she retained her body manipulation powers to the extent that she did when she was emotionless, but it was definitely an added bonus to their situation.

"It's kind of hard to get a bead on your mental state," Naruto said, knowing that the vibrations of his voice would reach her head by way of her bug parts and thus not seeing the need to yell too loudly "are you angry or something?"

"Not really!" she yelled back "a little sad, a little understanding, but mostly happy!"

"Happy?"

"Yeah! Happy! Dunno why, but- oh, wait, here it comes!"

Naruto realized that the mountain she was flying up was actually an inactive volcano, if the lake in the middle of the crater at the apex of the large mountain were any indication. She stopped moving horizontally and began to hover higher and higher in the air until the air got short and even higher than that.

"So what did you want to do?" Naruto rasped out.

"I wanted to show you something!"

As soon as those words were shouted from her mouth, she let go of the Uzumaki, sending him and his fox into freefall. Naruto instinctively spread his arms and legs out in a spread eagle fashion to lower the amount of drag on his body, but Kashikoi wasn't making it easy for him.

"I'M NEVER GOING TO FUCKING FORGIVE YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCKER FUCKTARD FUCKITY FUCK FUCK FUUUUUUCK."

Naruto wasn't taking it too well either. Although he didn't know the exact position in the air he was in when Fu let go of him, he judged it to be way too high up for any normal human being to be able to breathe evenly. So when Fu let go of him, he knew that he'd have a very long way to fall before hitting the lake and a very short time to figure out how he was going to stay oxygenated in that time.

It was soon revealed that he didn't have to as Fu zipped past him faster and farther than a person of her weight's terminal velocity should be. Naruto saw some sort of concave purple device fly up to him and he reached out and caught it without changing his velocity too much. He slapped it on his face and began to breathe good, normal air. It was made from her carapace and shaped exactly how he remembered a respirator was shaped, so he knew what to do instinctively. That just led to more questions in his mind, like how she was able to make a respirator from her carapace in the first place.

But it wasn't time to be thinking stuff like that. He narrowed his eyes and zoned in on where Fu was. It wasn't hard considering she transformed half-way to her complete tailed beast state and her body was sparkling in the sunlight.

Kashikoi fell silent in his jacket, so he swapped the respirator around on her. It didn't fit snuggly on her snout, but she got the air she needed.

Naruto took stock in the situation and realized that the lake was absolutely humongous. Large enough that he could clearly see Fu and the target she was headed to without any obstruction, even from as high up as he was. He kept on switching the respirator between the two of them until the lake started getting bigger and bigger and bigger until he finally saw what Fu was trying to hit.

A. Giant. Fucking. Snake.

No, this wasn't any normal Giant. Fucking. Snake. This was a goddamn sea monster, or lake monster in this case. Naruto could see the shadow it made as a coil in the water and the red of its giant monster-like eyes even from his height. Its radius was half that of the entire lake. Naruto didn't think even tailed beasts got that big, yet there that thing was, waiting for Fu to engage it.

He wanted to scream some sort of warning, but knew it wouldn't do him any good. She was way too far away for his voice to reach her. So he waited in morbid fascination as the monster uncoiled itself and lethargically burst through the surface of the lake. In actuality, it was probably moving as speeds a normal person couldn't comprehend, but because of its giant mass, it looked like it was moving at a snail's pace.

The head of the monster broke through the surface of the lake and it was UGLY. It had four mandibles, each with innumerable amounts of needle-like teeth on the inside. Two eyes that were as red as fire. And its skin was a mottled brown, pock-marked and gouged out with who knows what.

Its roar reached even him.

The monster gained verticality by unknown means and opened its mandibles wide in preparation of eating Fu whole.

Instead of being skewered on its teeth, like she should have, in the monster's opinion, she put in another burst of speed and flew right into its windpipe, bypassing the sharp bits. Confusedly, it snapped its mandibles shut and began to flow back into the water. It didn't get far, however, as its neck violently exploded outwards from the side. A purple blur flew out of the resulting hole and began preparation of another beast bomb.

This one flew back into the hole in its neck and exploded out the other side. The monster's head turned limp and began its descent back into the lake, now devoid of the terrible life it once had.

All that happened in the timeframe required for Naruto to get close enough to the lack that he started to seriously worry if he was going to die or not. That fear seemed to be unfounded, as Fu dived into the water, still half-transformed, and started up a huge water technique underneath the waves generated from the dead sea monster.

Water flew up from where she was and hit Naruto and Kashikoi, slowing their descent considerably until they safely landed in the water.

Naruto was immediately confused by having his body suddenly go from free falling in the air to having no idea which way was up in the water, but Kashikoi had no such problem. She wiggled out of his coat, wrapped her extended tail around his torso, and started swimming up to the light.

Naruto helped her out until his body froze in fear. Underwater, he could see what remained of the monster's head sink back to the depths of the lake. He'd _severely_ misjudged the size of the thing. Its entire head was probably the size that Fu would have been if she were to be fully transformed into Chomei. And its body… Christ, its body was even worse than the head. Covered in spikes and decaying lake life. It looked like Wrath incarnate.

And Fu just two shotted it.

As soon as he broke the surface, he began swimming as fast as he could to the shore, forgetting in his fear that he could walk on water. It didn't matter that it was dead, just sharing a body of water with it was terrifying enough for him to have a nervous breakdown.

Or he would have, if he were made of weaker stuff.

It didn't seem to matter in the end, as Fu hovered over to them and grabbed them with her legs carapace once more. She was back to how she was before she half-transformed and was laughing so hard that Naruto couldn't get a word edgewise.

Naruto and Kashikoi hit the shore and started scuffling away from the lake as fast as they could.

"W-What was that?" Naruto sputtered out, body still in a feeling of shock and numbness.

"Achievement unlocked," Fu said, as she held onto her guidebook with a grin on her face "Kill Proteus Leviathan. Mother of Serpents trait unlocked." She flipped to presumably where there would be a description of the trait "All sea serpents that you encounter will bend to your will and your will only. No matter the size or ferocity, it will automatically see you as the mother of all its kind. You will forfeit this trait to the person who kills you. If you die by no one's hand, it will go to the person closest (emotionally) to you."

She flipped over to where her base stats were and began laughing uproariously once more. "I just- I just- I just gained 68 levels from killing that thing."

"68?" Naruto and Kashikoi simultaneously asked, not that Fu could hear what the fox said.

Fu's face suddenly went slack as she collapsed to the ground and began convulsing slightly, prompting Naruto's immediate concern. He tried to make his way to where Fu was, but his body wouldn't listen to his orders very well. He managed to crawl within a few feet to her before she stopped and sat up straight.

"Whew!" she blew air out her windpipe in relief "That was the weirdest feeling that I've ever felt in my life."

"What happened?" Naruto rasped out.

"My body changed to accommodate my base stats." Indeed it did. She was always lithe and strong before, but now she looked absolutely intimidating, in a cute way, of course. Although she was still small and lithe, corded muscles could be seen under her skin. It wasn't very visible unless she made a show of flexing those muscles, but she still looked like she could wrestle a bear to the ground based on appearances alone. She also seemed to have grew a few centimeters in height

"Wow…" Naruto said with a slight blush.

Fu bent down and winked at him. "Getting second thoughts?"

"E-Eh. No, I was just… I'm still too-"

"Ahh, it's fine," she said nonchalantly, testing out her reflexes and newfound speed and strength. She picked up a fairly solid looking rock and crushed it to dust in her hand. She was that strong.

"You are so OP now," Naruto whispered.

"Excuse me, but can someone who isn't a crazy person please explain to me WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?"

"Yeah," Naruto said, realizing just how strange his predicament was. "What _was_ that about? What was with the freefall? How can you make respirators with your exoskeleton? And what was with that giant sea monster?"

"With that thing alive, the shore is too dangerous. I couldn't take you with me to kill Proteus. And I wanted you to see how awesome I am, so I just let you go high enough in the air that I'd be done killing that thing by the time you hit the water. I can make simple structures with my exoskeleton. And I found that lake monster when I was flying around and scouting out the area."

"How did that get in the lake anyway? How did it survive? Why are there no records of that monster?"

Fu shrugged. "I assumed it was a part of the game, but it might not be. But it doesn't matter," she said with a sudden smirk on her face "'cause I just got so much experience from that that all my stats are around ANBU level."

Naruto calmed down a little and shakily got up. "That's so not fair. You had control over Chomei's power when you took that thing on."

"All's fair in love and war."

"And what's this?"

Fu bridged the gap between them in a split second. "Bit of both," she whispered, then started cackling to her amusement.

Naruto fell on his ass with a shaky smile. "H-Huh."

When she woke up from emotionless, it was like her repressed feelings suddenly blossomed forth. This Fu was different than the Fu he remembered. She was more open, louder, more prone to laughing, and also a little bit more flirtatious.

Naruto shook his head to rid them of those thoughts. "Can we go back to Jiraiya now? He might've found Tsunade by now."

"We've been gone for like, 7 minutes."

"Are you sure that it's not closer to 7 hours? 'Cause I feel like I just aged a lot."

"That's great! I know that I love me my older men," Fu drawled out, hoping to provoke a response from the resident blond.

His blush returned full force.

00000000

A day later

Naruto stared at one of the most powerful shinobi in existence. Tsunade of the Sannin, Slug princess, most accomplished medic nin in the history of medic nin, last remaining royalty of Konoha, and next candidate for being the Hokage.

And she was shitfaced.

Naruto didn't like what he saw.

**AN/ Got the look of Proteus Leviathan from a Sangheili face, just more like a giant lake monster instead of a bipedal alien.**

**Have a gentlemanly day. **


	29. a thought experiment

Chapter 29

Naruto's sharp eyes turned to Tsunade's attendant, a brown haired woman by the name of Shizune. He pointed directly at the Sannin and quirked an eyebrow. "This is her?" he asked.

Shizune grimaced and nodded a little morosely.

"You know I can shtill hear you, right?" she asked the Uzumaki. This kid seemed… different than most other kids that aspired to be Hokage or other such bullshit. There was a very fine line between being an arrogant little shit and being a confident little shit. Even in her inebriated state, Tsunade knew that he toed the line by his countenance alone.

"Anyway," she continued. "I refuse. Go back home. The job of Hokage is for suckers anyway." Tsunade went back to her drinking, unaware that she just pissed off a certain fiery little blond.

"Take that back," he ordered with a steely expression on his face.

"Naruto…" Jiraiya said in warning.

"Take that back," Naruto ordered a little more forcefully, making a show of not taking heed of Jiraiya's warning.

Tsunade grinned cheekily at the blond. With a drunken grin on her face, she leaned forward and said "Awwww, little tyke's getting crabby. Wanna take him to bed?" she asked Jiraiya, getting more than a little fed up with his antics.

Naruto breathed in slowly a few times to get his nerves under control and vacated the booth. "Whatever," he said dismissively. "The job of the Hokage should go to the strongest person in the village. The person everyone can look up to. Not a drunken washout trying to escape debt collectors who doesn't even know the worth of a human being."

Tsunade barked out laughter. "Okay kid. You've got gutsh, I'll have to give you that. But a snot-nosed brat who hasn't seen the horror of war doeshn't get to talk back to someone who could destroy him with a hand behind her back."

Fu, who had been staring at the wall lost in thought, snapped her attention to Tsunade. If things were going to go out of hand, she knew that she'd have to be the one to step in to make sure no one got seriously hurt. Kashikoi was still jittery from her stunt over the mountain and Jiraiya didn't seem like he was in the right state of mind to start fighting a close friend of whom he hadn't seen in years.

Naruto twirled out his bo staff. "Wanna put that money where your mouth is? If I beat you with your hand behind your back, you have to go back to Konoha with us. And let me just make one thing clear, I _am_ going to become the Hokage one day. I'm not going to let some drunk tarnish its name while I don't have it."

Tsunade uncaringly turned her head back to Jiraiya. "What's his rank?"

"Special jonin."

"Combat?"

"Leadership."

Tsunade clicked her tongue. "You're on, little man."

Naruto was followed out of the store and onto the road by Tsunade and the procession of worried companions. Jiraiya quickly caught up to the young Uzumaki and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Naruto…" he warned again.

"I know what I'm doing Jiraiya," Naruto said, brushing him off.

The Sannin in question narrowed his eyes at Naruto. He'd been acting pretty moody as of late and Jiraiya had a feeling it had to do with his power-ups he'd been using to help fight.

"You really don't Naruto." Jiraiya was quick to say. He sighed into his palm with a little bit of frustration. "Just… don't use your Jinchuuriki powers or the curse seal in this fight. That last thing with Itachi and Kisame… that was the one and only exception in which you could ever even think about doing that."

Naruto twirled his bo staff around a bit and smiled a foxy smile at Jiraiya. "Don't worry, won't need it."

Jiraiya shrugged his shoulders and walked to the sidelines where Fu, Shizune, Tonton, and Kashikoi were looking on anxiously. If getting the shit knocked out of him by a superior force was what it took to ground him back to reality, then so be it.

"Gunna be a short fight," Jiraiya muttered to Fu.

Jiraiya narrowed his eyes at Naruto and Tsunade squaring off. Things felt… off, as of late. Jiraiya knew that he lived in a fairly random world. A world that was made only more random by his idea to become a ninja. If he hadn't to become one, he probably wouldn't have gone to the summon world and become allies with powerful toad creatures. He wouldn't have fought his best friend to the death. He wouldn't have trained the most powerful human of his generation. He wouldn't have faced down giant beings of mass destruction and carnage.

His threshold for the random, strange, and the all around impossible was fairly high, is what is trying to be said. That being said, things were happening that just shouldn't be happening. Foxes didn't mature three times their sizes in a span of mere hours. It's hard to imagine the sheer amount of coincidence that Naruto just so happens to be genetically inclined to sensory techniques, medical jutsu, puppetry, shape manipulation, kenjutsu, genjutsu, ninjutsu, taijutsu, and everything else he was learning. And Fu… she was gone for ten minutes and came back stronger than he thought he would be able to fight. He had to pull some serious Yamanaka techniques to make sure she was even the same person.

And that wasn't all. Every time Jiraiya questioned Naruto, he was supplied with a vague, noncommittal answer. Not really lying, but not telling the truth at the same time.

And he was content to leave it at that. Jiraiya believed in and trusted the boy. He went through enough in his life to deserve to keep a few things to himself. Still though, if he didn't get some solid answers soon, things might get hectic.

While he was lost in thought, Naruto and the slightly drunken Tsunade had been duking it out in the middle of the street. Both were huffing and puffing, but Naruto was slightly more winded than her. He also sported heavier injuries and a smarting pride.

She was strong.

Super, duper, really fucking strong.

And nothing up his sleeves worked on her. Sensory was practically useless. She shrugged off the few genjutsu he knew and blew through all the clones he could make. She was faster than his staff and even when he hit her, it barely did any damage at all. She wasn't even fazed when the bo staff suddenly turned into triple segmented nunchaku with spikes at the ends. All that bundled up with the fact that her, what he assumed to be prominent, right hand was held behind at all times.

If he didn't think of something soon, he was going to be going back empty-handed.

So he stopped.

He paused.

Stood stalk still in the middle of the battle with a look of concentration on his face.

Tsunade stopped the heel drop she was about to land on his head mid swing. She didn't pick up anything in her surroundings and saw that his hands were clenched tightly together, not doing anything, much less signing ninjutsu. She lowered her leg to the ground slowly and smirked superiorly at his pitiful frame.

"Do you finally realize that the job of the hokage is if for suckers?" she asked haughtily.

Naruto's face strained as he looked up. "The pervert said you were a teammate of his. That's right?"

Tsunade paused and let her face go neutral out of suspicion. "…Yesh."

"You don't look older than 25."

The smirk returned full force. "Flattery will get you nowhere, brat."

"So you're actually around… 50, right?"

Tsunade grimaced at the smartass in front of her. "Didn't anyone teach you how to talk to girls? Don't bring up age, weight, height, or measurements. At leasht not on the first date."

"Then you have to use a genjutsu, right?" Naruto continued on, undeterred and still making a face that spoke of intense concentration.

Tsunade's face went flat as she wound her arm back for a straight punch at him. "You're really trying my patience."

"You're… really… trying my… my-" Naruto screwed his face shut as his body buckled inward a little bit. Veins were visible on his face and exposed skin.

Tsunade threw a worried glance Jiraiya's way, which he returned with a shrug of the shoulders. Fu, having an impending sense of doom, started stalking over to the two with the intention of ending it for good.

Fu didn't have a chance to do so, as all the chakra Naruto had been building up in his body at once point was released all at once. His chakra took a visible blue hue and ballooned outward sweeping anything off the ground that wasn't nailed to it. Fu nearly lost her footing and had to dodge stray rocks, Shizune stumbled and bent her body forward to protect Tonton, Kashikoi darted back into the restaurant, and Jiraiya didn't look fazed at all. He just stared at what Naruto had done with narrowed eyes.

The dust settled, Naruto fell to his ass laughing, and Tsunade looked down with confused eyes. "What was that?" she asked.

He pointed directly to her face and began guffawing. "You really are just an old hag, aren't you?"

Tsunade was befuddled by his state of joy even despite his injuries and exhaustion. Until, that is, she looked down at her hands.

Her wrinkled, crabby, veined, weak hands. That pulse he used had dispelled her genjutsu. The one that was being supplied by her strength of a hundred technique.

Naruto's laughter was cut short when his windpipe was suddenly crushed by a righteous Tsunade. She lifted him up with both her hands wringing desperately at his neck. Her face was a mask of fury scarier than any demon's. Her wrath stronger than a rampaging tailed beast.

"You… Fucking… Brat," Tsunade hissed between her clenching jaw.

Naruto pawed desperately at her hands until he got a hold of her thumbs. He pried with all his strength to get even a little bit of air in and when he did, oxygenating his body was not his priority.

"One hand… behind your back? Huh?" He wanted to say something a bit more clever and witty, but there was only so much he could do without blacking out. Pointing out that she technically lost the bet was just about as good as he could do.

Tsunade's eyes widened with despair and then understanding. Even so, she didn't slack her grip on his throat

"I suggest you put him down," Fu said from behind Tsunade.

Tsunade huffed. "You want me to put him… down…" her sentence dwindled to a stop as she looked behind her shoulder to see what the little girl thought she was doing, trying to order her around.

The little girl wasn't there anymore.

It was a monster in her place.

A sort of insectoid warrior that was easily two feet taller than the legendary medic. She was covered head to toe in purplish plates of chitin. There were two massive arms, both ended with person-length swords, and two sets of smaller arms that ended with needles just below the ribcage. Three sets of giant wings jutted out of her back and were vibrating menacingly. Her helmet had a giant horn sticking out at the top and glowed a light orange from the insides.

It was scary. A form that she'd been working on for a few weeks, training to get the transition period shorter and shorter until she could perform it in less than 10 seconds.

She called it her combat form.

Tsunade was struck dumb by such a sight.

The giant shifted the weight of one of her sword hands and daintily set it on the collarbone of the Senju. The giant was hulking for sure, but it had fine motor control apparently.

"I suggest you put him down," Fu said again with no shift in tone.

Naruto slumped to the ground with a muted thud and immediately started up his mystic palm to bring his larynx back into working order. Tsunade slowly turned around, reapplying the genjutsu as she did so, to face the bug girl.

Tsunade wasn't just floored by her size or how intimidating she looked. No, she'd fought and killed much larger and much scarier opponents than Fu. It was just… the way she _felt_.

Fu felt strong to Tsunade

Fu felt powerful.

Fu felt like a human did to a bug.

Tsunade shook herself from her reverie and glared at Jiraiya. "What the fuck kind of company are you keeping?"

Jiraiya shrugged. "Kinda wondering that myself."

"Awesome company," Naruto rasped out as he picked himself up. "It's fine Fu, she lost fair and square. She's coming with us. No need to be all scary."

The armor nodded and began to deconstruct back into itself. While they began to have a very funny and very insulting back and forth about Tsunade's genjutsu, the Sannin herself and Jiraiya began to have their own little conversation with significantly lowered voices.

"Seriously, what'sh up those? They don't… feel right."

"Naruto Uzumaki, Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi and Fu, Jinchuuriki of the Nanabi."

"I've met Jinchuuriki before. They don't feel like that. They're just normal humans. Those two…"

Jiraiya shrugged. "Look away for a minute and the girl darts off with the boy and comes back at least twice as strong as before."

"You _are_ joking?"

Jiraiya shrugged. "Don't even know anymore. So you lost the bet; are you gonna come with us?"

Tsunade crossed her arms and looked to the side. "Probably not."

"Come on," Jiraiya said, trying to persuade her with his 'charismatic' tone "There's no one left to take the hat. I get that Konoha isn't your favorite place, but it's definitely gotten a lot more fun since… then."

Tsunade paused for a second. "…Is Sarutobi really dead?"

Jiraiya's mood dropped instantly. "…Like I said, there's nobody left."

Tsunade sighed explosively. "What's wrong with that kid anyway?"

Jiraiya looked from side to side and extended his senses a few times wider than usual to make sure no one was watching or listening. Then, in a hushed whisper, he leaned forward and said "Orochimaru got to him."

Tsunade inhaled sharply from surprise. "Christ, are you sure he's okay? He isn't going psychopath? How long ago did he get got?"

"'Bout a month or so ago, during the chunin exams. That's also where he met the bug girl."

Tsunade looked over her shoulder to the two kids. Shizune had joined them in happy conversation and had even introduced Tonton to Kashikoi, who was gazing at the pig with an uncomfortable amount of drool dripping from her mouth.

Tsunade shook her head. "You're putting me in a bad situation, you know."

"Yeah, I know."

Tsunade put her head in her hand and sighed a long, frustrated sigh. "Lemme think about it."

00000000

From a vantage point a few miles away from the village atop a rather large hill and obscured by trees were two figures. Both were crouching noiselessly on branches that had a natural break in foliage and were gazing at the town with rather large and cumbersome telescopes. Or, they would have been large and cumbersome were it not for the fact that those two were very sure of what they were doing, as they had done so multiple times before.

Finally, one lowered his telescope and, without moving, began whispering to the other. "Orochimaru-sama, I think this is all we're getting for tonight. Have you made your judgment?"

Orochimaru lowered his telescope as well and licked his lips slowly and sensually. He had a look about him of supreme anticipation and joy. "Oooohhh, we're changing targets alright."

Kabuto did a double-take. "A-Are you sure, sir?"

Orochimaru's face went from happy to distrustful and angry in a second. "Do you question my thoughts?"

Kabuto was quick to back up on his statements. "Nonono, sir, of course not. It's just that… well… you've been so focused on having the powers of the Uchiha for such a long time…"

"And I will have them," Orochimaru said mysteriously as he began to look through the telescope again. "We didn't get a good vantage on Naruto-kun's and Itachi's fight, did we?"

Kabuto shook his head.

Orochimaru inhaled deeply and exhaled laboriously from his mouth. "I've just got this feeling… this feeling that Naruto-kun has more in his eyes than he tells through his actions. You are aware of the experiments I played with his blood, correct?"

"Yes…" Kabuto said unsurely. It was a normal experiment (well, normal for Orochimaru) where the blood of test subjects was replaced with that of kekai genkai users. Normally, it wouldn't mix well and leave the test subjects with some… unique body defects. Not the ones that were experimented with using Naruto's blood, though. If Naruto had normal blood, then the test subjects would either die from their bodies rejecting the blood, or be perfectly fine when their bodies accepted the blood. Instead of either of those happening, they went insane.

Not insane, as in rubbing their shit on the walls. It was more along the lines of extremely fearful confusion and paranoia. They were all shouting in fear of 'the numbers' and 'the angels' up until they died when their hearts went out. Even for someone who had seen the worst, morally reprehensible human experimentations, this was something that put a little bit of trepidation in his throat when he saw.

"Well," Orochimaru continued on "I think there's something in his body that I really quite want a lot. And it isn't a bijuu."

"Are we going to kidnap him? Our usual plan for coercion doesn't seem like it's going to work, what with the curse mark not having much of any visual effect on his disposition."

Orochimaru licked his lips again. "Kidnapping sounds like a good plan. Get a good rest. We're acting tomorrow."

Kabuto's eyes widened to the point where one might have been able to see the whites all around his irises. "Y-You can't mean that, sir. The two of us are no match for those six."

"Seven, if you count the pig."

"Even so, we should call for some back up. Maybe Kimimaru could help? Or we could just ambush them on the way back."

"Send a hawk back, then. The three of us should be more than enough to deal with two washed up 'legends', one unstable Jinchuuriki, one Jinchuuriki that hasn't a hold of his powers, one medic, one fox, and one pig. And we aren't ambushing. I need to see his full power for myself before I take him."

"…Even so, that girl… she looks strong. Are you sure Kimimaru will be enough for her?"

Orochimaru chuckled a little bit. "Oh, Kimimaru isn't going to go after her. You will."

Kabuto damn near fell off the tree.

00000000

The next day, morning. On the patio of an inn

Next to a dozing Kashikoi, Shizune was gazing at a sight that had been baffling her for quite a while. There were two or so solid Naruto clones trying to 'perfect' their rasengan by repeatedly smashing them into poor, defenseless trees out in the forest. Apparently he was making progress with it, even if Shizune herself couldn't see any differences. And she prided herself with being a rather observant person, so it must be an internal thing, she reasoned.

However, the thing that was well and truly confusing her was watching as Fu, a rather nice and overactive girl from their introductions, beat the shit out of Naruto.

Technically, it was a spar. But anyone with two eyes and a couple of neurons to rub together could see that it was as one-sided as it got. The boy wasn't pulling any punches either. And he had A LOT of punches to pull.

Any serious wound on him was healed up with a swipe of some medical chakra. He could sense Fu from any direction thanks to his chakra sensor. He had an impressive array of underhanded strategies used perfectly with shadow clones and basic transformation. That bo staff alone was a mechanical marvel to her. She'd been watching for a solid hour at that point and hadn't seen him use any one form that it turned into more than once. He didn't have much genjutsu, just a few low level ones that he managed to pry from Jiraiya on his way to Tsunade, yet he was using them with deftness that came from a seasoned shinobi.

Generally speaking, jack of all trades type shinobi didn't last very long. But that was only because there were only so many trades that any one person could use with any skill. Naruto, however, was putting the _all_ back into jack of all trades.

And even with his strength, he was getting absolutely thrashed by that girl.

She was truly a monster. Anything that hit her, be it a swing from a hammer, the impact of an explosive note, and even a few sharp projectiles had little to any effect on her. And even if it did, it would just heal right away.

Her punches left small craters in the ground. She could create strange appendages from her body at will. She could freaking _fly_ if she was inclined to. Needless to say, Shizune believed every word that the two spoke as it pertained to them getting to that point. Obviously, they didn't reveal the game, just the stuff that it caused and how they handled it.

As she was watching the two 'spar', a slightly buzzed Tsunade plopped herself down next to her. Neither of them really said much, just taking in the strange scene before them, until Shizune leaned in next to her and whispered "Hard workers, aren't they?"

Tsunade reluctantly grumbled an affirmative. "He's getting the shit kicked out of him."

"Oh that's nothing compared to when they started. Some of his hits are actually connecting with her now."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "Is their difference in strength really that big?"

Shizune nodded with a sagely look on her face. "Perhaps if she didn't use her bijuu, her prowess would be on par with a jonin specializing in combat roles. With it, however, I'm sure she would even give Jiraiya a run for his money."

Tsunade clicked her tongue. "No shit."

"You know," Shizune said, pressing on with a slightly mischievous look on her face "he's rather proficient with medical ninjutsu. And you are in dire need of another student…"

Tsunade crossed her arms and turned up her nose at such an insinuation. "No fucking way. I'd punch him out of the hospital before we got to step one."

"If you say so…"

Tsunade huffed a little and grew silent. Shizune was a nice girl, but she knew too much for her own good.

Getting a good idea, Tsunade got up and walked directly in between Naruto's and Fu's spar, catching a punch from the bug girl and blocking a staff strike from the Uzumaki to stop the spar they were so focused on. "Sorry to interrupt your spar, but I think I have a proposition for you."

Naruto leveled a questioning stare at the Sannin. "Okay… what is it?"

"I will go to Konoha with you, if you-"

"You already are going to Konoha with me," Naruto said, interrupting her. "Remember, I beat you in that bet we had… or were you too hammered to remember?"

A tic mark formed on Tsunade's brow. "First off, pissing me off enough to where I broke a technicality doesn't mean you beat me. Second-"

"But it does," Naruto interrupted again. "We made a deal based on rules that had to be followed. I followed my rules, you didn't follow yours."

A second tic mark formed on her forehead. "Well I'm not going to go with you unless you complete a challenge of mine."

"But we had a deal-"

"But I don't give a shit," Tsunade said harshly "I'm not going to go with you and the pervert unless you complete this challenge."

"Well how do I know you aren't going to go back on this bet?"

"Because I won't," Tsunade said tiredly. "Okay, look" Tsunade paused to hock a loogie into her palm. "Shake on it, yeah?"

Naruto breathed out in a frustrated manner, but ultimately hocked a loogie of his own and pressed his hand to hers. "But you better not give me some bullshit thing, like move a mountain, or find friggin God. And if you try to get yourself out of it when I win…" Naruto let that sentence linger, staring into the busty woman's eyes with conviction.

Tsunade smirked, and then the ground cratered under them without any warning. Strength of a Hundred was a beautiful thing when used correctly.

She'd been expecting some pretty amusing yelps of surprise as he tried to get footing where there was none. However, she'd miscalculated just how fast Fu was. Naruto didn't get a sound edgewise before Fu sprang into action, caught him, and flew a few feet above Tsunade in a hover with a dreadful look on her face.

Tsunade clicked her tongue. "If you manage to learn my Strength of a Hundred technique, I'll go back to Konoha, no questions asked."

"And how am I supposed to do that?"

Tsunade did an exaggerated shrug. "Trial and error? I'm not giving any hints."

"Then you might as well be asking me to move mountains."

"Then you better get to pushing," Tsunade said in a dismissive manner, walking away as she did so. "I didn't get any help when I was coming up with it. Neither will you."

"What timeframe are we talking here?" Naruto asked as Fu finally alighted back on the ground. "Days, months, years?"

"Whenever the pervert gets bored. Better get started; he's got a short attention span," and with that, Tsunade disappeared into the hotel.

Naruto and Fu shared a look. They shot off into the woods and stopped in a small clearing. Taking a cursory glance to make sure no one was watching, Naruto sat down and brought out his guidebook.

Since there was such a large difference in ability between him and Fu now, sparring was actually a feasible way to gain levels. He'd already gained a level since he and Fu began sparring that morning, giving him 5 more base stats. Because of the flag, though, they automatically went into intelligence, bringing it up to 65.

Naruto groaned in frustration. Just one more level and he would have gained the ability to teleport to any area that he had seeded with his seal before. It was starting to look like he was going to have to switch flags though. Looking at the merit section, as he had seen the merit before, he put the flag on the Strength of a Hundred perk.

_Strength of a Hundred_

_A legendary technique devised by Tsunade of the Sannin to give combat medics on the front lines of war a way to defend themselves and to help the fight with low chances of getting hurt in the process. So far, she is the only one to have mastered it. A single blow using this technique could crater the ground. The user would be able to split boulders with his or her fingers. This is one of the most lethal techniques in the world._

_Pre-requisite: chakra 50, chakra control 80._

_Costs 8 merit points._

Since he had the extra attribute points, he dumped them into shape manipulation to help the rasengan out along. It was a new area in the ninjutsu category that opened up as soon as he began training with the rasengan.

"Wait a minute," Fu said, snatching away the guidebook from Naruto's hand. "Is it possible," she said, talking to the book "for him to learn the Strength of a Hundred technique without buying the perk?"

"_Clarification required: are you asking whether or not he is capable of learning said technique from training alone?"_ the harmonious voice the guidebook had rung out.

"Yes, I'm asking that."

"_Due to the fact that the Strength of a Hundred technique is classified as a [legendary technique], the Player is rendered incapable of learning this technique in any other way than unlocking it in the perk section of the Naruto the Game Guidebook."_

Fu growled a little. "I hate that woman. Who does that? Painting the target after throwing the knives"

Naruto took the book back from her and put the flag on Strength of a Hundred. "I do too, but we need her… wait a minute. What about the rasengan?" he suddenly turned his attention away from Tsunade of the Sannin and towards his book. "What about the rasengan? Is that a legendary technique?"

"_The rasengan is labeled as a [transformative technique]. It is not statically powerful or weak. The amount of destructive potential is reduced or grows depending entirely on you."_

"Mhmm. Are there any other limitations on techniques for me to learn?"

"_Most of the merits in the merit section of the guidebook deal with [kekai genkai], or abilities and effects that are tied in within the mechanics of the game. Very few techniques devised by humans with no abnormality in their chakra are within the merit section. Along with the exception of a few forbidden techniques like the [edo tensei], the [creation rebirth], or the [dead demon consuming seal]." _

Naruto shrugged. "So I guess it won't interfere much. Let's see then…" he said, flipping through the book a few times "that is… ten levels. If I level up ten times, then I will get this perk."

"That's a lot of levels," Fu remarked.

"I guess that just means more sparring."

"What about the law of diminishing returns?"

"Have you been going all out on me from the beginning?"

Fu slowly shook her head.

"Then all you have to do is ramp up your difficulty as I progress and it should be fine."

"Will an increase in chakra control really affect your battle prowess enough that I could afford to 'ramp up my difficulty'?"

Naruto shrugged. "Only one way to find out."

Fu didn't look too sure. "Still, there has to be a better way to-"

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

Both Naruto and Fu were shocked out of their thoughts by the sudden explosion that sounded off in the distance. It looked like a volcano exploded and ventilated ash and dirt up into the air. Just as they looked at each other in confusion as to what they should they do, both of them were hit by the shockwave and resulting wave of dirt and dust.

Fu immediately created an exoskeleton shield and enveloped Naruto in her arms to protect them from the rocks that were flying at the speeds of bullets. Neither of them could hear a thing save for the debris that kept on hitting their defense and the sound of air whooshing about them.

When it was over, the shield went back into her body just as quickly as several pairs of wings sprouted from her back. "You think it's the Akatsuki?" she asked.

"If it was the Akatsuki, then we would probably be dead."

"True." Fu's eyes scrunched up in confusion. "But then who could it be?"

Naruto went silent for a few seconds. "It has to be Jiraiya. Even if he didn't cause that explosion, he's so strong that only something like that could be effective."

Fu narrowed her eyes in anger and conviction. "Are you okay to walk? To fight? Our spar was pretty tough."

Naruto smirked. "Please~ you're talking to a level 38 ninja with 50 endurance and 300 healing. I'm fine."

Despite the heavy situation, a smile couldn't help but make its way to her mouth. "Then it sounds like we're saving our teacher."

Just as Naruto was snug in the hold of her carapace, Shizune and Kashikoi burst into the clearing. "Are you okay?" she asked. Gone was the scared girl persona. In her place was the stalwart disposition of a trained professional.

"Yeah, we're fine. Just about to take off and kick ass," Naruto answered. "Where's the hag?"

"She's already gone. I'll follow you."

Kashikoi hopped up in Naruto's arms. "I really hope it isn't fishface. I hate sushi."

And with that short exchange of words, they were off. Bursting through the canopy, jumping on the branches, swinging off the thick trunks. They were like a regular troupe of monkeys as they began to go to their location.

"What are you good at?" Naruto asked loudly to Shizune, who was running on the ground, trying to keep up with Fu's insane speed.

"Medical ninjutsu."

"Anything else?"

"Poison jutsus, senbonjutsu, the basics, an in-depth understanding of the human anatomy."

"How accurate are you with senbon?"

"I can hit nerves and sensitive areas from 50 feet away at a moving target."

"Right. You stay behind us at all times and try to get them with your stuff when they're not looking. We don't know how many there are, but it's always to err on the side of caution. You pick your targets and we'll protect you the best we can. You don't feel safe, get to a distance and heal up. Got that?"

Shizune nodded.

"Now, Tsunade is probably going to be helping the pervert. That means the big guns will be focused on them. We take out the small fries the best we can, _then_ we move to help them _if_ we can. If not, Fu'll back them up the help of Chomei. Understood?"

The three of Naruto's companions each gave their own words of affirmation to his suggestions.

They broke through the canopy, trying to get an understanding of what was going on, then went straight back into it in order to escape the giant flying snake. The snake wasn't so much flying per se, more like it was a giant _launched _snake.

The snake dispelled and they came through the treeline a bit quieter, as if that would lessen the amount of snakes thrown at their general direction.

It wasn't a pretty sight.

What could only have been described as a beautiful grassy clearing had been demolished beyond recognition. Craters pockmarked the area, there were giant swaths of land upturned and swept to the side, and there were even a few areas that got turned into a swampy mess.

Gamabunta, Katsuyu, and a myriad of colorful giant snake summons, all commanded by Manda were fighting and destroying the landscape even more. Based on all the fighting, it was hard to figure who was winning.

Every once and a while, there would be a flash of lightning, a plume of flame, or just the very loud sound of flesh smacking at high velocities. From the senbon made of hair and the metallic flashes of a very long sword that came into view every now and then, Naruto could only figure it was Jiraiya and Orochimaru duking it out.

But a little off to the side was a scene Naruto didn't like the sight of. Tsunade was kneeling on the ground, drenched in blood that didn't appear to be her own, and had two smirking monsters in front of her about to deal the finishing blow.

Naruto jumped out of Fu's carapace into a sprint and threw a couple of senbon at the creepier of the offenders, a nerdish looking fellow with glinting glasses. He jumped out of the way immediately and was followed by the other one, an albino with strange facial markings and what looked like bones jutting out of his body in a symmetrical fashion.

He came to a stop next to Tsunade. Without taking his eyes from the offenders, he knelt down and whispered in her ear "You okay?"

No answer.

Usually, if one were hurt and still capable of kneeling without falling over, they'd be screaming in pain. That meant that Tsunade was either in a genjutsu, not likely given her status as a medic, or… or… Naruto didn't have an answer.

Naruto came to a full stand and pointed his bo staff at Kabuto and Kimimaru. "Didn't Sasuke kill you?!" Naruto shouted over the sound of giant summons fighting, deciding that Tsunade was going to be a nonfactor anyway.

Kabuto shrugged. "Who knows?"

Naruto frowned and crouched down in his bojutsu stance. "Well, looks like Ima hafta finish the job."

"Actually," Kabuto replied smartly "my quarry isn't you, It's bug girl."

Naruto frowned a bit more and expanded his chakra sensor for a moment. Fu, Kashikoi, and Shizune had taken up ranks behind him silently while he addressed the enemy.

"Whatever floats your boat!" Naruto shouted. "Kashikoi, you're with me. We're taking down the albino."

The poor fox whimpered a little bit. "I dunno… he seems like… scary. I dunno."

"Then it looks all we gotta be is scarier," Naruto said with as much confidence as he could muster. Truth be told, there were a lot of things that could go wrong for them in the next five or so minutes and that really scared him. He immediately confronted that fear with the knowledge that if he didn't try his hardest, he could die. Or even worse, someone he cared for a lot could die. That knowledge steeled him and got him ready for the fight on hand.

Fu flew as fast as she could at Kabuto and got him to break off with Kimimaru, while Naruto charged the pale man and threw a few senbon at him to test his reaction speeds. The man just swatted the needles out of the air without a care in the world and effortlessly blocked the oncoming bo staff strike. Naruto's eyes widened out of surprise while Kimimaru's narrowed in disdain.

Naruto wildly backpedalled from him and dodged the stab strikes that were aiming for his lower torso. The man's speed, strength, and flexibility were out of the world as far as Naruto was concerned. Thinking on his toes, the Uzumaki spammed a few clones that ran around and tried to flank their targets. When he was surrounded, they all charged at once, each coming with a different mode of attack.

Kimimaru's eyes narrowed even more as he swept both his arms around him, letting loose bone projectiles from his fingers that pierced and dispelled Naruto's clones and nearly shot the real Naruto.

Naruto growled a bit in frustration and snapped the bo staff in two, then unfolded the halves into their double sword states. He charged at the man once again and locked blades with bone.

"This is the being Orochimaru-sama is so interested in?" he nearly hissed out.

Naruto's eyes widened a bit in surprise. "What?" Naruto asked through clenched teeth.

Kimimaru deigned not to answer and swept both of Naruto's swords to the side. Naruto staggered back, wide open, and was knocked on his ass by the headbutt Kimimaru hit him with.

The dead bone pulse user walked slowly to the downed Naruto and slowly drew a long blade from his thigh bone as he did so. "You do not deserve Orochimaru-sama. Even so, he asked to bring you in alive-" his slight monologue was interrupted when he tripped on something and was slightly unbalanced.

Naruto smirked in triumph and launched at the now very much open Kimimaru with both his short swords and stabbed him directly in the chest, right where the liver and heart would be.

Or he would have, if the swords sunk through than more than just the skin. Naruto's triumphant smirk was wiped off his face as he was backslapped away with a huge amount of force. It was all he could do to hold onto his double swords.

Kimimaru looked down at the lengthened fox tail that was quickly uncoiling from his leg. Just as he was about to end the miserable mutt's life, one of his knees buckled outward and a senbon was sunk into the soft of his neck. A foot was planted on his back as Naruto launched himself back. "So you have dead bone pulse and that gives you the ability to control your bones and make weird armor underneath your skin, but your neck shouldn't have those protections, or else you wouldn't… be… able… to… move."

Kimimaru had slowly turned around and cocked an eyebrow at Naruto. He reached up to his neck and slowly withdrew the senbon without any difficulty. "You are more resilient than you appear. No matter. Playtime is _over_," he punctuated his statement by growing even more bones out of his joints and running at the blond.

Naruto slapped the two swords together and extended them into a triple nunchuck. He got into his best defensive position and began guarding against the onslaught of slashes, stabs, strokes that Kimimaru send against him. The triple nunchuck was best for him because with every motion, it allowed him to use that energy to go into another. Since they were all tied together, it was a weapon best used on the defense.

And it went on like that for longer than Naruto would have felt comfortable with. Every slash he blocked. Every stab he parried away. Every single time that monster would try to hit him, Naruto found a way to either nullify the blow completely or redirect somewhere else.

Getting what he thought was a good idea, Naruto momentarily allowed for a gap in his defenses, which Kimimaru capitalized on. He stabbed his right hand completely in and through Naruto's lower abdomen.

Kimimaru, devoid of any expression on his face, tried to draw out of the sword that was impaled in Naruto. However, despite being in too much pain to even fathom at the moment, Naruto grabbed onto Kimimaru's arm as tight as he could and returned Kimimaru's headbutt to him. He gave a little bit of ground to the blond only to get headbutted again and again. Over and over Kimimaru got beaten in the head. Kashikoi even sprang up at once to claw viciously at his his knees, ankles, elbows, anywhere that had a joint really, and tore through any amount of tendons and muscles that she could.

When Kimimaru finally regained his senses and tried to sink his other arm into Naruto, the blond in question planted one of his feet on Kimimaru's chest and jumped away, drawing the bone out of his body as he did so. Naruto slid his hands immediately into his mystical palm and started remedying all that was wrong with him. Luckily, Naruto's gap in defenses was well thought out, as Kimimaru only managed to pierce his large intestine, which was healed up as fast as he could make it heal.

Kashikoi rushed to his side, dripping in the blood of a pale man and raised her hackles. "That was pretty stupid," she murmured.

"Pretty stupid, or pretty smart?"

"Pretty desperate," Kimimaru answered, swiping the blood from his forehead as he got up with seemingly no difficulty.

"Impossible, I cut your tendons and severed your muscles in your legs. You shouldn't be able to stand."

"My fox here cut your tendons and severed your muscles in your legs. You shouldn't be able to stand."

Kimimaru began walking to Naruto, albeit much slower than he had been before. There was even a bit of a limp in his step. Suddenly, a piece of bone jutted out of his neck and he withdrew, disk by disk, a long whip-like spine. He cracked it in the air a few times experimentally and pounced on Naruto without any warning.

Naruto got up, internal injuries healed for the time being, and blocked the downward stroke with his staff. The whip curled around it and rent a huge tear in his back. Naruto gasped in pain and jumped back a little.

With this new battle information, Naruto stopped being able to block the strokes at all, else they would just curl around his defenses and get him anyway. Every swipe had to either be dodged or hit away and at the speed that they were being thrown at him, neither were very effective.

Naruto was being backed up more and more and more with cuts and rends appearing all over his body from the deadly whip. Kashikoi tried to hamper his movements, but every time she tried, he'd throw a sharp piece of bone at her. And he was getting too accurate for her. She already had a few puncture wounds from when they got too close.

Eventually he was so backed up, that he almost tripped over the still out of it Tsunade. "Please!" Naruto tried desperately to speak out to her. "You have to help us! If you don't then we're going to d- AH FUCK." One of Kimimaru's strikes hit him right in the stomach and ripped a huge gash from side to side. Naruto was finally forced to a knee from this hit and looked up murderously at Kimimaru.

"You are a bit more trouble than I thought you'd be. Not matter. You seem to be the type of person to value his comrade's lives above his own, so" Kimimaru drew back the whip and straightened it so it had the rigidity of a sword. He lunged forward and tried to stab Tsunade in the throat.

Naruto's hand shot out and grabbed the protruding and very sharp discs that made up the blade. It stopped a few centimeters short of touching her body. "While I can still move. You won't hurt my friends, you won't hurt my comrades, AND YOU WON'T HURT THE FUTURE HOKAGE OF THE HIDDEN LEAF! Because someday, I'll become the Hokage."

Kimimaru's expression did not change. He brutally withdrew the sword from Naruto's hand, severing a few fingers in the process and leveled it at him once more. "Then you will watch when you can't move," Kimimaru lunged once more, this time at Naruto. All energy was gone from him. There was no way to call upon the Kyuubi, the Curse seal, or even the ByakuSharingan for help. He just didn't have the will for it.

But the sword didn't reach him, for Tsunade had gotten in front of him faster than the eye could follow and acted as a shield for him. Naruto looked up in shock at the sight of the end of the scarlet covered whip sword that was protruding from her body.

"You won't hurt him," Naruto thought he heard her whisper.

And it was in that one second.

That one second that two shadow clones who had been desperately practicing something out in the woods bore fruit and dispelled. Two shadow clones that once they got a boost in shape manipulation were so very very close to something that neither could dispel and tell the original for fear that without the both of them, they wouldn't be able to bear that fruit.

Naruto got up slowly and with the remains of his hands, created a shadow clone. In his good hand, it began to create spirals and rings while the original condensed them into the shape of a ball.

"Please… you have to leave," Tsunade said in a strained whisper. "He's too strong for you."

While she couldn't see the technique Naruto was making right behind her, Kimimaru could, and he got worried very quickly. He withdrew the sword and tried to stab the Uzumaki again, but was met with the same meat shield. The pale one tried to vault over her, but she grabbed onto his midsection with a crushing grip and wouldn't let go.

"PLEASE!" she screamed, "JUST GO! GO AND-" the sword was once again ripped from her body as was Kimimaru's torso from her grip. Not by his or her choice though.

Standing in front of Tsunade was Naruto, nearly doubled over from pain and weakness and exhaustion, but smiling from triumph. The rasengan that he buried in Kimimaru's face launched him back at least 30 feet in a bloody and beat pulp. After that one last hit, Naruto crumpled under his own body weight and was caught by Tsunade, who had already begun her creation rebirth and tried to begin to desperately heal Naruto as tears fell from her eyes.

"Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die," Tsunade kept on repeating those three words over and over until she was hoarse in the throat.

"Oh please," Naruto said, hocking up a piece of blood from his mouth "I'm not gonna die. Not until I become the Hokage. B-besides. We're not done yet." Naruto slowly turned his head to the direction of where Kimimaru had landed. His curse seal had completely gone through the first stage and right on to the second one.

Even as Tsunade healed his wounds, they began to close up on their own. Red chakra began to leak out of his pores and coalesce into a shroud around him, burning her hands as she tried to help him.

Naruto chuckled evilly. "I think some payback is in order," he said as he got on all fours. Two clones popped into existence, both equally enshrouded in red chakra and both cueing up rasengan in Naruto's palms.

Kimimaru, in his dinosaur-like form, roared out in anger, and frustration, and pain to Naruto, then disappeared. Naruto flung his hand forward and caught the bone drill that had raced towards him faster than the eye could see with his rasengan. They ground against each other for was seemed like hours, but in reality was only probably seconds, until Naruto's rasengan finally broke through the tip and began eating through the rest of the drill at a frightening pace. The first one finally exploded, causing chunks of Kimimaru's arm to get blasted to the wind. Just as that one went, Naruto thrust the second one directly into his sternum.

Kimimaru was pushed to the ground from all the sheer pressure Naruto was exuding as his entire torso got eaten up by Naruto's most powerful technique. This one exploded as well, completely bisecting the last remaining member of the Sound Five, sending all ancillary bits out bone and muscle and organs flying.

His brownish skin retreated into itself. His eyes dulled. He breathed out once more.

And he was dead.

The red chakra vanished and Naruto's knees fell out from under him. Tsunade caught him once more and started healing him with a chakra transfer.

"You… you stupid little kid," she choked out, tears dripping from her eyes.

"B-Battles not over yet. Where's Fu?" Naruto leaned upwards a little bit to see the combat form of Fu tearing off the last remaining chunks of meat from what used to be Kabuto next to a winded Shizune. Out farther into the distance, the battle between Sannin and Sannin still roared, though the summons managed to dispel themselves.

Naruto got up on his hands, then his knees, then his feet.

"Stay here," Tsunade ordered. "You'll get in the way if you try to fight. I'll go finish this. Then we'll all go back to Konoha."

Naruto grinned a little bit, which turned into a bit of a strained laugh. "Oh no, we had a deal." Without saying another word, Naruto jumped away from Tsunade and began running at full tilt to the fight between Jiraiya and Orochimaru. Tsunade ran after him, but the creation rebirth decided at that very moment to act up and she was floored to the ground. She looked at him go with fear in her eyes.

Fear that he might go and die again.

Naruto ran like a zombie all the way to Jiraiya and Orochimaru. His feet were getting caught on things in the grass. His lungs were burning something awful. But he was a man on a mission and was going to see it through.

After a long trance of a run later, Naruto found the two having and intense stare down. Both were haggard and sporting severe injuries, but Jiraiya was the one more taken out of it. He even had weird markings on his face and had more toad-like features. "N-Naruto?" he asked in confusion.

Naruto didn't hear him, because he was so focused on Orochimaru.

"Naruto, don't! stop! RUN!"

Orochimaru chuckled as the Uzumaki grew closer and closer to him. "Is this what's called the 'Will of Fire'? What a foolish notion."

Orochimaru withdrew the Kusanagi from his mouth and tried to swipe Naruto's legs from under him.

In a sort of delirious focus, Naruto expertly jumped over the blade, rolled on the ground, and began running just as quickly as before.

Orochimaru swung the blade once more, this time a downward stroke trying to lop off his arm, but was met with much the same results.

The Snake Sannin clicked his tongue and decided to take matters into his own fangs. His neck extended faster than Naruto should have been able to react and tried to bite down on his neck.

Naruto's conscious mind might not have been able to react, but his unconscious mind was. One, single fist rocketed out from his side and hit Orochimaru square in the jaw. Normally, this would have no effect. However, since he suddenly obtained the innate knowledge of how to perform the Strength of a Hundred technique, he guessed that his and Kimimaru's fight got him enough EXP for the flag to have kicked in on its own.

So, instead of Orochimaru getting slightly inconvenienced, he got his head blown up.

Into small little chunks.

Then Naruto fell over, well and truly done with that fight.

And he was tired. And he was in pain. And he was sort of triumphant. And he was happy. And then he was unconscious for good, with Jiraiya scratching his head in confusion.

**AN/ college and writer's block is hard.**

**But hey, here's some for you.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	30. a new foe

Chapter 30

**AN/ okay, so I made a mistake. I thought that Tsunade's super strength gained by shit loads of practice and chakra control painstakingly refined to the point of granting her the ability to smash boulders apart was called Strength of a Hundred.**

**It wasn't. Strength of a Hundred is a subset of Creation Rebirth which makes her practically invincible on the battlefield and allows her to regenerate at monstrous speeds.**

**Since I don't really want to retcon anything, let's just go with calling her super strength [Strength of a Hundred] and her regeneration ability [Creation Rebirth: Strength of a Hundred].**

**Sounds confusing, I know, but you'll have to deal if that really bothers you.**

**Without further ado, here's the story.**

Naruto's mindscape

Naruto didn't exactly wake up. It was more along the line of him suddenly coming to his senses. As if he were standing in the murky water that made up the floor of his mindscape for an unfathomably long amount of time and it was only then that the fog was swept from his head and the fuzz cleared from his vision.

Looking around for a few seconds, he realized that the mindscape was really quite a bit different than it was when he last visited.

In front of him was the Kyuubi's cage, like it always was, but on the surrounding walls and floor, there pulsed strange black veiny materials just beneath the surface. It felt like it was constantly radiating a sick, purplish vibe. Also on walls were various symbols all about as tall as he was. Like a graffiti artist snuck into his head and painted his mindscape full of uniform icons that all shared a similar art style. There was a heart made up of ones and zeroes, a confident stick figure getting praises heaped upon him, a scroll with an advanced seal getting drawn in it, a sort of radar, and even two pictures of the Sharingan and the Byakugan amongst many others.

"**So you're finally… awake?"** the deep booming voice sounded out.

"I… think so?" Naruto asked, still mesmerized by the pictures and the black veins on the walls.

The ground rumbled as the Kyuubi slowly got up and turned to face the cage. **"You've done fucked up, you know that?"**

"Funny, people have been telling me that a lot lately."

"**Well it's true. I'm not sure if you're aware, but your body is tearing itself apart. You die, I disperse. So I'm not really too keen on you dying."**

Naruto gestured to the room around him. "So… I'm guessing that those little pictures represent my merits?"

"**Mhmm," **the Kyuubi grumbled disinterestedly.

"So then that means that those black veiny things are a representation of my curse mark?"

"**I guess you could say that. There's a bit more to it than that, but the snake doesn't want to show himself around now that you're here."**

Now this piqued Naruto's interest. "The snake? I thought only me and you were here."

The Kyuubi barked a laugh out loudly and vindictively. **"Of course you'd think that. There are more people shacking up in here than you know. But that's not the point here, well… it sort of is," **the Kyuubi said mysteriously.

"Okay, okay," Naruto said, holding up his hand. "I get it. The curse mark ain't too good for me. I know this. As soon as I learn how to get rid of it, I'm going to get rid of both mine and Anko's."

The Kyuubi laughed once more. **"You know nothing, little human. Are you even aware of what the curse mark is?"**

Naruto paused for a second. "It's… a seal? A really dangerous seal that grants the user temporary power while making him or her lose their rationality?"

"**And where does that power come from, idiot?"**

Naruto paused. "Uhhmmm… It… sacrifices pieces of the body to be burned? Like the Akamichi technique?"

"**Try again, dumbass."**

Naruto snapped his fingers. "It takes the rationality piece of brain and causes it to make an excessive amount of the spiritual chakra and frontloads it into the user."

"**Hmmm… I suppose that book really is making you a bit smarter. Not smart enough to get the right answer, though."**

Naruto shrugged. "I don't know then. Where does the power come from?"

The Kyuubi hummed derisively.** "Tell me, what am I?"**

Naruto groaned. "What is this? Are you just making me feel bad for everything I don't know?"

"**It's part of me telling you just how bad you fucked up! Now tell me what you think I am!"**

Naruto crossed his arms and huffed at the cage that held the monster at bay. "You are a coagulation of chakra that has taken form. The form you chose appears to be a fox with bunny ears and a human torso with 9 tails. The chakra that you're made up of is different than human's chakra. It's denser and able to make people act more on their negative emotions."

"**Okay, you got a few bits, but I would be remise if I didn't tell you what you got wrong."** Naruto could just feel the smug grin that threatened to split Kurama's face. **"Truthfully, I'm only half of what I am. The Yang half. Your infant body was too little to contain the full me, so Mr. Fourth took the other half of him to the grave and sealed the rest with you."**

"What does this have to do with anything?"

"**Shut up, you insufferable ingrate. Anyway, what you also got wrong was the fact that I 'coagulated'. I didn't just come together. I was born, just not in the conventional sense. And I also didn't choose my form."**

"Just tell me what you're trying to say!"

"**I am! I'm telling you that just because you heard it from somewhere, that it might not be true, you fucktard! I'm telling you that you shouldn't act on something before you have the full knowledge of what's going on! And I'm also telling you that you shouldn't unseal that little curse mark!"**

Naruto was practically pulling his hair out at that point. "You just said that the curse mark is tearing my body apart!"

The Kyuubi huffed and walked around a bit. **"It would appear that my earlier assertion was proved incorrect. You're no more intelligent than a trundling beast. I said that **_**you**_** shouldn't **_**unseal**_** that thing."**

"So who do I have to do it? You? And what's so wrong with me unsealing it?"

The Kyuubi growled. **"That power that the curse mark generates comes from the surroundings. It pulls in nature chakra from the trees, ground, air, anything not human or animal and converts that chakra for human use. The chakra isn't too bad for you to use, what's bad for your body is the thing that converts chakra."**

Naruto pinched the bridge of his nose out of frustration. "And just what is that?"

"**A soul."**

"…a soul?"

"**Yes, a soul. A fragment of a soul to be precise, and a fragment of a soul that just likes to have his hands in everything."**

Naruto backed up a bit. "You don't mean…"

"**Oh, I mean. That snake put a piece of him, in you. And if you unseal that curse mark, he'll come out, raring and ready to cause more damage than he's already done."**

"So what do I do?"

"**You have to either defeat him, something not possible at your weak state, or you have to choke him out."**

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "And let me guess, you're the one who's going to choke him out, after I remove_ your_ seal."

"**Got it in one, little kit. That pitiful excuse of a snake-human just doesn't know how to handle the chakra of a bijuu. I'll raise your temperature and burn him out like the little virus he is."**

"And how do I know you're telling the truth here? For all I know, the curse seal might be a creation of the game that'll give me infinite experience, or power, or… fuck it, I don't know. Ramen? Infinite ramen sounds nice."

"**I'm telling you because it lies within our best interests. If you don't heed my warning or give me control, you're going to die a dog's death. And I'll died a fox's death."**

"How do I know you're not going to just take control of me?"

The fox grumbled a little bit. **"What I'm planning won't give me much control over your body. I told you, both of us are in trouble. I'm not going to risk my freedom for my life."**

Naruto paused and tapped his foot for a few moments in thought. "Okay, what're you going to do? And can it be used on Anko?"

The Kyuubi grinned and leaned on its haunches. **"If I swamp anyone's system who isn't a Jinchuuriki, they'll probably turn into a puddle of unidentifiable ooze. As it is, it's probably going to hurt like all hell for you. Now, you just need to crack open the vault a bit."**

"And how do I do that?"

"**lift up the paper seal about halfway, uncrank the seal a few notches, and get away from it as fast as you can. I can't just **_**give **_**you my chakra. I have to completely fill up your chakra circulatory system as quickly as possible. The snake shouldn't survive a slow burn, but it's best to get this over with as quickly as possible. Do you understand?"**

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto said nonchalantly, walking up to the gate and willing the water to push him up to the seal. He paused just short of ripping it off and peered into the gaps of the gate right at the horrifying maw of the Kyuubi. "You know…" Naruto said slowly "this takes a _lot_ of trust on my part."

The Kyuubi got right up to the gate and breathed heavily on Naruto's exposed head. **"Yeah, well this takes a **_**lot**_** of benevolence on my part."**

"I know. I'm just saying that… I don't know, thanks? Honestly, you don't seem that bad of a person."

The Kyuubi seemed amused by this fact. **"Is that so?"**

"Yeah, maybe you just need someone to talk to? If you wanna talk, you can just ask."

"**Are you done?"**

Naruto went back to the piece of paper on the cage. "Okay, you can sulk all you want. I get it, I really do" Naruto peeled the seal up until the keyhole was exposed "It feels good to sulk. It feels good to think and know that the whole wide world is unfair and that no one likes you because of things you can't be held responsible for" Naruto grabbed around at the physical part of the keyhole a bit to find any way to uncrank it "It puts fate out of your hands. It puts the fault on the people who refuse with all their being to understand" He finally got his hands in the middle and unfolded it a little bit. Naruto peered in and saw the solitary eye of the Kyuubi "We're kinda similar like that. I can tell. But you know what? It feels so much better to share that pain than to sulk alone. I know that for a fact."

The Kyuubi huffed once more. **"Are you done?"**

Naruto threw his hands up in the air out of exasperation and immediately cleared the hole that he made on the seal. Immediately, a viscous red goop began to shoot out of the hole with the force of a fire hose. It stained the water a dull red and branched out from there, darting down the hall and branching off into the corridors.

The Uzumaki clung to the cage just above the fluttering piece of paper. "Heya… how long is this going to take?"

"**Dunno. Few seconds? A couple days? But it doesn't look like you're going to be here to find out."**

"Huh?" Naruto looked at his hands. They looked a bit… different than usual. His vision began to fuzz out and he almost fell from the cage wall. "Whatzhh… hap-pnin?" Naruto slurred out.

"**I'm getting rid of a virus by turning up the heat. That means that until the virus is gone, you're running a fever. And I thought you were a medic," **the Kyuubi said in a condescending tone **"Though even I didn't think delirium would be a part of the package."**

Naruto's world began whirling around him. He hugged the cage wall for dear, sweet life until he felt an irresistible pull on his back. He was wrung from the cage wall by the forces of gravity and delirium until he lost grip and fell back first into the spewing hole on the cage. It blasted him forward into the murky waters and then he suddenly wasn't in his mindscape anymore.

00000000

Naruto shot out of bed shouting in pain and confusion while swinging his fists at any perceived threats in his immediate vicinity. That state of mind didn't last long as he doubled over from pain and desperately grabbed at his curse seal, which was burning like someone was putting a brand to his neck.

Although he might have imagined it, he could have sworn he heard a light 'popping' sound come from the mark. What he did know was that his hands, which were clawing at the curse mark, were suddenly washed out with a goopy white substance. The pain began to subside bit by bit as the curse seal oozed the white goop from his neck. It was held together firmly enough that when the pain became manageable, he grabbed the goop at the base and pulled.

Like a tree getting pulled out by its roots, the goop held firm in his neck as the branches that he assumed were stuck in his chakra circulatory system began to loosen. Then, as hard as he could, he yanked and white goop up and out of his body. At that point, it didn't even feel bad. It was more like finally popping a pimple that had been bothering him for months on end. Sure, it hurt. But the feeling of relief outweighed that hurt by so much that it wasn't even worth comparing.

The goop that was finally free from Naruto's body began to whither and dissolve into the air, something for which he was eternally grateful for.

Now that he was finally done with that ordeal, he took stock of the situation and setting he was in. from the view that the window gave him and the medically white bed he was in, Naruto surmised that he was in the Konoha hospital.

He hopped out of bed and walked around a bit, testing to see if anything was wrong his body. The only thing he found was that a few fingers on his right hand were a slightly darker shade than the rest of his hand. Naruto looked around for the guidebook, and seeing that it wasn't on the bedside, came to the conclusion that Fu must have taken it or something to make sure no one else got their hands on it.

That made Naruto's first and foremost objective getting the guidebook from wherever it was and spending his points. He was actually kind of gleeful. He must have gotten so many points from his fight with Kimimaru. And even if he didn't get much from beating Orochimaru considering he was already really hurt at the time, he figured that he had to have gotten a lot from that one as well.

Naruto calmly walked out of the hall and was met with a shocking sight.

All along the hallway were injured people practically overflowing from cramped rooms. From his fingertips, he spawned about 20 clones and ordered them to immediately begin helping the injured and assisting the surgeon and doctor shinobi in getting the people back on their feet. As they started up their various modes of medical ninjutsu, the original Naruto fast walked down the hall and got to the circle receptionist desk, which was manned by a couple of overworked interns scratching morosely at their notepads.

"Hey," Naruto greeted quickly, as he was in a great hurry "Has there been a girl named Fu admitted here?"

"The Jinchuuriki?" one of the interns asked.

"That's the one."

"Sorry, no. She's always visiting here though. You'd probably have more luck just waiting here than trying to find her."

"What about Anko Mitarashi? What room is she in?"

"She was released about 2 days ago."

Naruto's eyes widened. Now, after getting knocked unconscious from the battle with Kimimaru and Orochimaru and waking up in the Konoha hospital, he made a few educated guesses as to what had happened in his unconsciousness. Tsunade probably came to Konoha to become the Hokage. Fu may or may not have been hurt enough to be admitted into a hospital. And Shikamaru and the rest of the party members had probably been gathering resources to help alleviate the suffering of the village.

"Right, right, so I've been out for a few days now. Can you give me a condensed version of what's happened?"

The intern finally looked up from the notepad he was scratching in and at Naruto. His eyes widened from recognition and he stuttered out an answer. "U-Uhh… Tsunade-sama got s-sworn in."

"Okay, figured."

"There's a charity group that was formed a few days ago that's helping out the afflicted."

"Guessed on that one too."

"And, uhh… Tsunade comes here routinely to help cure the people that the surgeons that don't have the skill to help."

Naruto gave him a thumbs up. "Fantastic. Do you know if Anko Mitarashi is on a mission at the moment?"

"N-No, I don't. I heard that she's still recovering, so she's probably not on one."

Naruto gave one more thumbs up. "Thanks for all the help. A few of my shadow clones are helping the people out by the by. I'd appreciate it if someone got them some sort of organization. They're really good at healing people."

And just like that, Naruto sprinted down the hallway and jumped out a window, leaving a couple of perplexed interns puzzling over what just happened.

The guidebook just got put on the backburner. He had something much more pressing to take care of.

00000000

The outskirts of the forest of death

After a quick stop at the Inuzuka clan home, which was strangely devoid of life, to get some clothes that didn't leave his ass hanging out, Naruto raced to the forest of death. It was the only place he could think of that Anko would be. Even when he found her for the first time when he was looking for a teacher, she was hanging out at the forest as opposed to her domicile.

Naruto began to walk around the fenced area and peered in from the outside. It wasn't like he was afraid of the forest after all the time he spent in there, he just wanted to hedge all his bets. Extending his chakra sensor as far as he could, which wasn't very far in comparison to the entirety of the forest of death, he broke out into a run as he looked for Anko.

Naruto didn't know why he had to see her. There were probably a lot of things that needed his attention more than Anko, things like checking up on Shikamaru's progress, reporting to Tsunade, or finding his guidebook. Even so, he had to. He had to know she was okay.

There was a whistling from far inside the forest, prompting Naruto to duck his head. A wooden skewer impacted a tree just behind him and quivered from the force of the initial throw. If he hadn't ducked, it would have impaled his cranium.

Naruto paused and looked into the dark wooded area. A huge smile threatened to split his face in two.

"How many times do I have to tell you that I don't know anything," a brash and slightly pissed off voice came unseen from the forest. Anko Mitarashi appeared in a body flicker about 20 feet away from Naruto in a wary and combative stance.

The Uzumaki could have sworn that his heart skipped a beat at her sight. She looked the same as she ever did with the exception of a few bandages wrapped around her midsection and some black bags under her eyes.

"And stop doing that," Anko continued. "That's cruel and you know it."

Naruto laughed a little bit. "Stop doing what?"

Anko narrowed her eyes and body flickered right in front of Naruto with her kunai poised. She thrust forward and got it right against his jugular. "Stop transforming into him," she hissed. "I don't have any 'information' about him and frankly, your theory about his progress sounds like the ravings of a mad perverted old man. Oh wait," Anko said harshly "That's exactly what you are."

"You think I'm Jiraiya," Naruto said, almost laughing at the concept. Thinking on his feet to convince her that it was really him, he said "Remember what you told me to promise you back when you were carrying me piggyback from that crevice that Jiraiya pushed me into? You know, the one where I talked to the Kyuubi for the first time and summoned Gamabunta 'cuz I almost died?"

Anko's eyes softened for a minute before hardening in anger and suspicion. "Yes."

"You made me promise not to die," Naruto said quietly.

The kunai pointed at his throat remained there, though that statement definitely shook her resolve that Naruto was supposedly Jiraiya. "What was the first thing you asked me to teach you?"

"Seduction."

"And who was your first target?"

"It was you."

Anko backed off almost like she were struck. "And- And"

"And I posed as a guy named Kazama Arashi. And I had to trick Kurenai into giving me the information that you love tea ceremonies. And we didn't do a follow up test because you said I was 'golden'." Naruto walked right up to Anko. He could barely get the next part out because of the smile that was contorting his face. "And you can try to dispel a transformation, but there isn't any to dispel."

Anko's breath hitched in her throat. "N-Naruto? You're awake?"

"Yup." The shocked look on Anko's face was almost enough to drive him to hysterics. It wasn't even the look itself. It was more the fact that she was _actually making it_.

And then Naruto wasn't on his feet anymore. And then he was on the ground being hugged by a sobbing Anko. And then he was crying too. And then he was laughing while crying. And then Anko shouted out in happiness and began twirling around while still having Naruto securely snug to her chest. And then Naruto planted his feet in the ground and returned the favor to Anko. And then they both fell to the ground. Neither knew what to say, as there was too much. So they wordlessly decided not to. All the worry that was knotting up in their stomachs for as long as they knew that the other might die just suddenly uncoiled and they felt happy again.

Well and truly happy.

For Naruto, it was knowing that the first person who decided to teach him real ninja techniques, the first person who saw him as a prized student was okay. That she didn't have a weird cancer in her belly and that she was finally back to the way he knew she was like. That was his happiness.

For Anko, it was knowing that the first person who saw through the persona she developed to protect herself from others was back to normal. That he wasn't in an underground bunker and that he was in the right state of mind. That he recovered and he was okay. That was her happiness.

Finally, when they both regained their breath and got over their giddiness, Anko propped herself on one elbow and smirked sneakily at him. "So when did you get released?"

Naruto got on his elbow and gave her a sneaky smirk of his own. "I didn't. As soon as I woke up, I ran straight here."

"Oh? Are you still injured? Does it hurt anywhere?"

"No, I'm fine. In fact, I feel better than ever."

"Well that's good to hear," Anko said with a sickly sweet smile.

Naruto got very very nervous for a second. "W-Why's that good to hear?"

Naruto got his answer in the form of a fist to the balls.

While he was busy rolling the floor trying not to die from the sudden testicular takedown, Anko got up into a sitting position, crossed her hands over her chest and glared at him. "You goddamn asshole!"

"Whatthefuck?" Naruto asked in a comically high pitched voice.

"Do you know what it's like to wake up from a friggin coma only to find that your goddamn student went on a stupid fucking trip to go get a damn old hag to become the hokage!? Then, when you got over the pain meds and ask to go see him, you only get a vague answer that he was knocked unconscious in a fucking fight!? And do you know what it feels like when you find out that he was knocked unconscious only after fighting someone way out of his league, losing a few fingers, and doing something that should be impossible!? And do you also know what it's like to know that the student that you took so long to teach, the student that you decided to go make your fucking apprentice, the student that you so graciously got a field medicine kit for was unconscious for a few days at that point and no one knew when that student was going to wake up?! Huh?! Do ya?! 'Cuz I do! And it feels really fucking sucky!"

By the time Anko was done with her rant, Naruto was also in a sitting position, running his mystical palm over his hurt manhood. "A little bit!" Naruto interjected.

"Oh really?" Anko asked, giving him a hard poke in the chest.

"Yes! I do!" Naruto said loudly. "After the invasion, I found out that you got impaled! IM-FUCKING-PALED. THREE TIMES! You were against a wall with three arrows sticking out of you! Do you know what it's like to hear that news?"

Anko "Tch'ed" and looked to the side.

"And not only that! Oh, not only that! I was told that you were going to be okay from your wounds, so I decided NOT to barge into the surgery to help you out. But after I got kidnapped by whoever that Danzo guy was, I woke up a SECOND time. And this time… and-and this time…" Naruto trailed off, suddenly very much saddened.

He curled his fingers into a fist and shot his gaze back up to Anko. After a few seconds, she returned eye contact to him.

"You looked like you were dead," Naruto whispered. "And I was told that you probably were going to die. That just… that just… that just tears you apart, you know. Seeing someone you love on their deathbed just tears your heart in two."

Anko's face lost its anger. She grabbed Naruto's arms and pulled him into a hug. She stroked his hair and tucked his head under her chin. "Don't worry," she whispered "I'm not dying. I've got too much to live for."

Naruto sighed and leaned into her. It felt good. It felt natural being with her.

Anko started twirling his hair around one of her fingers with a contemplative look on her face. "S-So~ you… love me?"

"Of course I do. You're like the older sister I never got to have. You're family."

Anko clicked her tongue. "Family, huh? I guess I can live with that."

"Or did you think that was a confession?" Naruto asked sarcastically. "That'd make headlines for sure. Anko Mitarashi, special jonin, suspected pedophile. Read all about how she manipulated the feelings of her 13 year old student to play out her own warped fantasies." In any other situation, with any other person, Naruto probably wouldn't have been making those kinds of jokes. But with Anko, making those kinds of jokes with her was the natural state. It felt good to get back to the natural state.

"Don't pretend you wouldn't love it," she whispered hotly in his ear.

"Don't pretend _you_ wouldn't love it," Naruto shot back.

Anko didn't have a snarky retort to fire at Naruto, so she decided just to pinch his leg just hard enough that he would feel the pain. He squirmed a bit in her lap. "Oh goddamn, you won't let me get you back for hitting me in the balls, will you?"

"You're trying to even out a score that started with me hitting you in the balls by trying to get me flustered and embarrassed? Well sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm not a delicate maiden. I don't get embarrassed."

"Will you get embarrassed if I tell Konoha how into tea ceremonies you are?"

"Will _you_ get embarrassed if I reveal to all of Konoha just which porn you read?"

"Jokes on you. I don't read porn."

"Will you get embarrassed if I reveal to all of Konoha that you _don't_ read porn?"

"Will you get embarrassed if I tell you that Fu's…" Naruto trailed off.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

"Will you get embarrassed if I tell you that Fu's…" Naruto trailed off once more.

"You're going to have to speak up louder, Naruto."

"Fu's pregnant," Naruto said with his dead serious voice.

Anko's eyes widened as she grabbed a hold of Naruto's shoulders and twisted him around to look him in the eye. "What? How did- What did- When did-"

Naruto held up his hand. His face was stock still and he didn't look like he was joking. "In that order, doggy-style, my semen, and on the trip to find Tsunade."

Anko was shocked speechless.

"Honestly, I blame you," Naruto said an even voice. "Always teasing me about how Fu liked me, trying to sleep with us while naked. You planted the seeds of perversion in my innocent mind."

Anko began to make unintelligible sounds of confusion and disbelief.

Naruto pulled out a polaroid camera from inside his jacket and snapped a pic of her face. The camera printed out the picture and Naruto waved it a few times to make sure it came out all right. Naruto then handed it off to a clone he made, who shot off in the direction of the Inuzuka compounds.

"Gotcha," Naruto said in his unjoking tone of voice.

"Huh?" Anko asked dumbly.

"How did you believe that?" Naruto asked. "How did you believe that Fu and I did that?"

"You were lying?"

"You're goddamn right I was lying."

Anko looked at his neck, then back to him. "But your pulse didn't fluctuate. You were telling the truth."

"I'm just really good at lying."

Anko peered around Naruto at the clone running off in the distance. "And him?"

"Going to make copies. That face you were making was hilarious, by the way."

"All because I punched you in the balls in my anger?"

"Well now hold up, I'm not going to spread them around. Those are just insurance."

"Insurance, huh?" Anko nodded and clicked her tongue.

Naruto looked really proud of himself for thinking up that plan on the fly.

That is, until Anko punched him in the balls again.

00000000

Just outside the Hokage office.

Tsunade was rather busy, probably dealing with the affairs of reconstructing the village and trying to raise funds to get out of the debt said reconstruction would place on her. This led a clone of Naruto ample time to peruse the guidebook. He snitched it from Shikamaru when he wasn't looking and was gone without him being any the wiser. Naruto didn't know why Shikamaru had it and he looked pretty busy poring over a property management scroll, so he also didn't want to disturb him.

It turned out that he had gained 14 levels from beating Kimimaru and 6 more from Orochimaru. He was expecting levels a lot larger knowing that he defeated one of the most deadly people of all time, but it wasn't like Naruto defeated him while the snake was well rested and uninjured. Knowing that he got as many levels as he did from only a fraction of the experience he would have obtained had he defeated Orochimaru mano a mano reinforced the point that there was much more progress to be made for him.

As it was, the 20 levels got him a lot. 100 stat points to spend on his own will. The flag auto-leveled his chakra control to 80, which was needed for the Strength of a Hundred. He felt that a genin level flexibility was much lacking considering he was a special jonin, so he raised that to 50 along with his strength stat. 5 went to intelligence, so he could get the first level hiraishin. 20 went to endurance, bringing it up to 70. And he threw the last remaining points to his chakra levels, as he felt that ginormous chakra reserves were the thing that he was not only known for, but was what he was used to.

While his body locked up and changed, Naruto already began to ponder which attributes to bring up. Sensing was really useful to him, so he decided to level that one up fully, only barely doing a dent to the 800 attribute points he earned. Also, he decided to bring up the miscellaneous attributes that he used on a daily basis up to their maximum. That also included a new one called lying. Next went points into the dispelling aspect of genjutsu and the last bits were put into sealing and Jinchuuriki powers, things that he considered too dangerous and too unique to get schooling otherwise.

8 merit points were gone from the strength of a hundred, so he spent 2 of the last 3 on the Hiraishin. Nothing else really jumped out at him merit wise, so he finally put the book down and began sorting information received when he dispelled one of the clones working in Konoha.

There was also one achievement for Killing Kimimaru. +10 strength and unlocking the deadbone pulse.

Despite the minimal destruction to the Academy, there were still classes being held, which was good for his business knowledge. Macroeconomics was a strange subject to be sure, but he was learning a lot. And that knowledge was probably going to be put to good use on the world scale.

Shikamaru and the rest of the party went on a few expeditions in his absence, obtaining experience, loot, priceless artifacts, and exotic plants and animals. Already, they had sold some of the stuff they weren't going to use to economically stable regions for a huge sum of dough. That dough went into the infrastructure of Konoha, alleviating the burden put on Tsunade by a significant margin. The sheets that the Narutos made was a resounding success for the disenfranchised. So much so that they also opened up 4 soup kitchens (all with ramen as their base food), and began on helping the clans with the reconstruction of their buildings. Shikamaru acquired parts of a few textile factories as well as a few more small farms and a smelter. There was a steady supply of raw resources to be used by the Narutos to help the townsfolk of Konoha, upgrade his abilities in cooking, tailoring, blacksmithing, and other endeavors, make better tools for the party, and just sell back to The Land of Lightning for even more dough.

Despite the fact that their leader almost died, things were looking up for team Naruto.

Naruto was jolted from his reverie when three distinguished looking elders walked out of the office. He shot a glare at Danzo, but the man didn't seem to notice. Naruto didn't like the guy for not only the obvious reasons, but also for the fact that his demeanor just didn't sit right with the Uzumaki.

Naruto got up and walked into the office, knowing full well that he wasn't next on Tsunade's list of bullshit.

She was obscured by mountains of paperwork and seemed very annoyed that her next visitor arrived so quickly after the elders. "Yes? What is it?" she asked, obviously tired beyond what should be healthy for a lady of her age.

"Just wanted to check up on you," Naruto replied. God, it was so fun appearing before people who had no idea he just woke up from a 4 day nap.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then Tsunade stood upright so quickly that her chair hit the back of the wall with enough force to put cracks into it. She peered over the paperwork and sent one of her meanest looking glares at the blond, who didn't so much as flinch.

"You've got a lot to answer for, brat." Tsunade hissed between clenched teeth.

"And I do have answers, I promise," Naruto said quickly, doing damage control. "I just have one question for before I do."

One of her eyebrows quirked upwards. "Yes? What is it?"

"Is the role of Hokage technically a rank? Like, there's genin, then chunin, then special jonin to some, then jonin, then ANBU. Is Hokage a rank in there?"

Tsunade took a while to answer, her face not letting up in intensity for a moment. "There are different responsibilities and rights afforded to the Hokage, but the Hokage is still a jonin. It isn't in the hierarchal pyramid, if that's what you're asking. And why that question? That's such a strange question for the situation we're in."

"It'll make sense, I promise. I just wanted to know that you were still technically a jonin. And also ask for a promotion."

Tsunade didn't look amused. "A promotion? What, from special jonin to jonin?"

"You can't do that?"

"There's a process."

"I need that promotion, or you can't give any answers that you'll find satisfactory. It doesn't have anything to do with me keeping things from you. It's just that you won't believe me."

Tsunade screwed up her forehead in anger, laid her head on the stack of papers, and practically hissed out steam from her mouth. She stood up suddenly and said "Okay, you know what? Fine. If I can find out how you know how to do my strength of a hundred technique, and yes, I know about that because Jiraiya told me, after training for maybe 2 minutes, I will gladly give you a promotion. If you can tell me why you told me you woke up and not Shizune, I will gladly give you a promotion." As she said that, she began to rifle through a cabinet off to the side.

"What about how I removed my curse seal?"

Tsunade paused and slowly craned her neck to face him. "What?" she asked with exasperation more than anything in her voice.

"Oh that's right, you don't know," Naruto said silently to himself "Well, you will know soon."

Tsunade stalked to her desk with a paper clenched in her hand. She slapped it down on the hard surface and flattened it out, almost tearing it in two in the process. Tsunade fiddled around with her drawers for a few moments before she found the correct stamp and ink, then slammed the rubber stamp on the paper. She held it by the top and showed it to Naruto angrily. "There! Hokage executive seal of approval! Now you better start loosening those flaps on your face, or I swear you will-"

"Would you like to join my party?" Naruto asked, interrupting her diatribe before it could start.

Tsunade paused once again and looked at the window that opened up in front of her. "Huh?" she asked.

00000000

Somewhere off in a cave.

A sort of plant monster human thing sprouted from the hard rock surface in front of an idling Obito Uchiha. "Heya guy," the white half said "boy do we have some news for you."

"Speak." Obito ordered, not particular invested in hearing about what the Zetsus found out.

"**That experiment you tried to pull 13 years ago. It's started to bear fruit." The black half said.**

If Obito was surprised, he didn't let it show through the mask he was wearing. "Tell me everything."

**AN/ I'm getting my groove back.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**

By the way, here are Naruto's stats so far

_Base Stats:_

_Naruto Uzumaki: 37674/59000 Level 58_

_Chakra: 92_

_Chakra Control: 80_

_Wisdom: 49_

_Intelligence: 70_

_Charisma: 59_

_Flexibility: 50_

_Speed: 50_

_Strength: 60_

_Endurance: 70_

_Attribute Stats:_

_Ninjutsu__:_

_Learning rate 61/200_

_shape manipulation 70/200_

_Elemental affinities:_

_[Wind 62/200 x2_

_Fire 11/200 x.5_

_Earth 22/200_

_Water 32/200_

_Lightning 11/200]_

_Genjutsu__:_

_Learning rate 20/200_

_Detection 20/200_

_Dispel 200/200_

_Taijutsu:_

_Learning rate 40/200_

_Pain tolerance 35/200_

_Form 106/200_

_Senjutsu:_

_Not available_

_Kenjutsu:_

_Learning rate 12/200_

_Form 22/200_

_Versatility 13/1000_

_close-range Weapons:_

_[Bojutsu 61/150_

_Multi-sword 0/800]_

_Throwing weapons:_

_[Kunai and Shuriken 91/100_

_Senbon 61/150]_

_Jinchuuriki jutsu:_

_Control 150/1000_

_Shape manipulation 150/1000_

_Medical ninjutsu:_

_Learning rate: 61/200_

_Ability: 300/400_

_Sealing:__  
Mastery 100/200  
Formulaic complexity 88/1000  
Sealing cryptography 88/1000  
__Sensing:  
__Range 200/200  
Discerning 200/200  
__Chakra puppetry:  
__Mechanical genius 36/200  
Multi-perception 41/200__  
Miscellaneous: __*Only stats of note will be shown*  
trap laying 50/50  
trap detection 50/50  
poison resistance 10/50  
Seduction 50/50  
Gardening 50/50  
tailoring 50/50  
carpentry 50/50  
forging 50/50  
field medicine 50/50  
Poison identification and synthesizing 50/50  
Medicinal identification and synthesizing 50/50  
Teaching 50/50  
Politics 50/50_

_Merits:_

_Affability: unlocks 'how people see me' in the people section_

_Medical ninjutsu: unlocks medical ninjutsu in the affinity section_

_Romantic at heart: unlocks the stats on how people romantically see you as well as their romantic preferences_

_Sense of the ninken: The senses of the user is heightened to the point of similarity to that of a ninken_

_Harem ending: All the females that are romantically interested in the user and all the females the user is romantically interested in have lowered reservations to the concept of sharing the user._

_Sensing Ninjutsu: The ability to track people based on the chakra signature_

_Sealing: The ability and use of sealing type jutsu's_

_Ninja puppetry: The ability to use mechanical puppets using chakra strings for various purposes._

_Sharingan Stage 1_

_Sharingan Stage 2_

_Sharingan Stage 3: the sight of the legendary uchiha clan. the ability to track movements, predict movements, copy chakra usage through use of sight, dispel most of any genjutsu, and unlocks all the next series of sharingan mcguffin abilities._

_Byakugan: the sight of the legendary Hyuga clan. the ability to see 359 degrees in any direction, the ability to see the inner workings of the chakra coil network, allows the proper usage of the gentle fist technique._

_Strength of a Hundred: Tsunade's legendary super strength technique_

_Vague Hiraishin: allows the use of the legendary teleportation technique with an accuracy of 20 feet within the marked seal._

_Achievements:_

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: PASSED THE ACADEMY_

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: BECAME A GENIN (FOR REAL) _

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: DEFEATED HAKU OF THE ICE _

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: 'SEDUCE ANKO'_

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: PASSED THE FIRST CHUNIN EXAM PHASE  
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: PASSED THE SECOND CHUNIN EXAM PHASE  
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: DEFEATED (ENRAGED) GYUKI  
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: DEFEATED KIMIMARU_


	31. a new element

Chapter 31

"Tell me," Obito said behind his orange swirl mask "what you know of my… experiment, as you called it."

If it were physically possible for the two Zetsu to look at each other in confusion, they would have done so. "You tried to combine the polar opposite powers of the Izanagi and the Izanami.** It was supposed to grant you the power to turn illusion to reality. **A constant cycle of creation and destruction would follow you everywhere you went. **But it didn't work the way you wanted. **The power to rule over the very fabric of reality can only be harnessed in short bursts. **Or else things get strange. Very strange. **Thus, you tried to place a limit on this new power. **In order for it turn illusion to reality for any period of time, it had to be focused on one individual and one individual only. **You also had to sign that individual under a blood oath contract with the Shinigami. **But most importantly, it didn't work."**

"If it didn't work, then tell me how it bore fruit." Obito said harshly.

The white side shrugged. "We don't know. It's not the fruit that you are or were ever looking for, that's for sure. **Its very nature seems to have changed. If I were to guess, I'd say that your experiment has gained sentience.** Or at least a semi-sentience."

"Tell me what that means," Obito ordered, losing patience with the duo.

"That's the only logical conclusion to be made. **Since you can't control it. **And only we could barely sense it. **That means it's working on its own. **Whether it wants to or not."

"How?" Obito asked "How is it changing reality. I haven't sensed anything earth shattering."

"Whatever it is now, it isn't what it was when you created it. **It appears to operate under a set of rules.** The boy's, Naruto's, control over his chakra doubled just after he defeated a strong opponent. **He then gained the ability to use Tsunade's strength of a hundred technique.** Which he used to turn Orochimaru's head into a fine paste. **Needless to say, **he shouldn't be able to do that. **And if he can use the strength of a hundred so readily, **what's to stop him from learning Creation Rebirth? **Obtaining the rinnegan? **Elemental bloodline limits? **Resurrecting the Jyuubi? **Jutsu sealed away for good reason?"

"…Send Itachi and Kisame to capture him immediately. He can't be allowed to gestate for any longer. The strength of a hundred alone is a fearsome technique. If he learns anything else, he'll be unstoppable."

Again, if the two Zetsus could have looked at each other, they would have done so; this time more out of concern though. **"Has Pain not noticed you yet?** Itachi and Kisame have been injured greatly. **Well, more Kisame. We're still not sure if he's even alive. **But here's another thing," the white Zetsu said nervously. "He, Naruto, only gained the power of the strength of a hundred after defeating this Kimimaru fellow. **This stands to reason that he only grows in power when he overcomes great adversity.** It's doubtful that Konoha will let him leave anytime soon.** And even if we send everyone to Konoha in order to kidnap the boy, there's bound to be casualties on our side. **Then the rest of the nations will wise up about us. **They might even combine their strengths to try and take us down. **Whatever the case may be, Akatsuki is in no position to go to war. **It might, if we had the rest of the Jinchuuriki. **But we don't. **We advise the best course of action to be **getting the rest of the Jinchuuriki as quickly as possible, **then sending everything we have against this kid. **No preamble. **No warning. **Full power."

"And what about the boy? Do we wait for him to grow in power? Even killing him and waiting for the Kyuubi to regenerate itself sounds less dangerous than that."

"As it is now, _**you'd**_** probably be able to kidnap him and take him to one of the bases. **But that child is crafty and very versatile. **Other than the strength of a hundred, **we don't know what he's capable of. **It would be unwise to take or kill him until we absolutely need him. **That having been said, it's a simple matter of what we should do. **Just keep him there."**

Obito leaned in forward slightly and asked, "And how do you propose we do that?"

"**We have to go public. **Or at least start leaving obvious indicators that we are very active, **very powerful, **and very much in search of the Jinchuuriki. **Plant some rumors that Akatsuki is fervently looking to capture the nine-tails **while all our efforts will be on the rest of the Jinchuuriki. **Konoha wouldn't dare to send the Kyuubi on prolonged missions. **And no prolonged missions means **no dramatic increase in power means **easy capturing once we need him."

Obito sat in thought for a short while before leaning back and addressing the two, "Very well, that sounds like the plan with the least amount of fanfare and risk on our part. Keep extensive tabs on the boy and report back any and all findings whether they be prevalent or not. Whatever this situation is, it will not go in our favor if we do not know absolutely everything there is to know."

The Zetsu combination nodded and slinked off to do what they were told.

00000000

Back at Konoha, warehouse.

"We really need to think up some names for things," Ino said, relaxed against the desk Shikamaru was working at.

He grunted, not really listening.

"I mean," Ino continued, knowing full well that her teammate wasn't listening "we aren't going to go by the name 'Team Naruto'. I don't care that it all started with him, it's too… on the nose."

"Any proposals?" Shikamaru mumbled.

"I'm glad you asked," Ino said with a smile "I was thinking 'Team OP'." When she didn't get a response from the lazy Nara, she reiterated, "You know, the abbreviation of the two words Over Powered. I think it's pretty clever."

"Does anyone know what OP means?" Shikamaru asked disinterestedly. "Did you know what it meant two days ago?"

Ino sighed explosively and practically melted against the desk and onto the floor. "Okay, I'm going to level with you," she said, out of view from Shikamaru. "I'm really fricking bored here. The plants are doing fine, I'm waiting for the experiments to start showing data, and no way in hell am I going to start mixing random chemicals looking for an interesting reaction again. At least not without that protective gear Naruto promised me."

Shikamaru finally glanced up from his work. "Am I supposed to entertain you? I could try to teach you the stock market; though you'd probably lose everything we own."

"I resent that statement," Ino said without any bite to her words.

"How about the intricacies of property management? Macroeconomics? Microeconomics?"

"Boring boring boring."

"Okay," Shikamaru said, closing the scroll with a pronounced whoosh "you know what? I just bought a massage parlor near here. Leone's Pawful Parlor. Apparently, Anko took Naruto there at one point so he could learn more about pressure points and nerves, and now that it's up for sale since the original owner died, Naruto cajoled me into buying it."

A hand shot up and gripped the desk for support as Ino brought herself back up. "Aww, Leone sounds like such a nice name. Shame she's dead."

"Different owner. She's still practicing, but since massages aren't on everyone's minds right now, business isn't doing well. It should pick right back up like hotcakes once everyone's done mourning and reconstruction is on the right track."

"Okay, so you're bringing this up… why?"

"Because you're bored and Leone needs an apprentice."

Ino hissed in air. "I don't know… what's she look like?"

"Young, tall, blonde, busty, and boisterous. You two should do fine. Just tell her that Uzumaki Inc. sent you and that you're working for free."

Ino hummed her contentment. "Okay, sounds like fun. Thanks for the tip." Having said that, she pranced out the door still in her full scientist regalia.

The desk Shikamaru was situated at was near the door to the warehouse and overlooked most of the operations taking place. Along with the taijutsu training area, which Lee was using to spar with an automated training dummy, there was the general area where the Narutos were just making things. Clothes, iron works, puppet pieces, anything that needed to be leveled up so he could get the next tier of items. It cost a pretty penny to get all the tools needed, especially the forge, but it was all worth it. The stuff he was making was already at the level where it could be sold at a premium. There was, in fact, a backlog of nobles from small lands and ninja villages looking for elegant, or otherwise functional wear.

There were a few cordoned off areas with walls and separators in order to keep privacy, cleanliness, or just for the safety of everyone else. That included Kiba's training with his sister when they were at the warehouse, Ino's lab and garden, or Chouji's body modification training.

Since he got the role of jonin, Naruto's party size increased to 20, which is where it would probably stay. He recruited Tsunade, Anko, and Jiraiya, and was bouncing around a few ideas for more people. He definitely wanted to bring in Tenten, but she went radio silent and no one had heard from her for a while. Neji wanted to bring in Hinata and Hanabi and Ino wanted to bring in Sakura.

It was a bad situation because Shikamaru was practically in charge of the nitty gritty details and he couldn't condone just anyone being brought into the party. Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Anko were probably good ideas on Naruto's part considering the amount of trust he had for them as well as their substantial sway and influence in Konoha. But anyone else looking to be recruited had to be both very trustworthy along with bringing a lot to the table. Personally, Shikamaru thought Shino might make a good member since his clan jutsu was so strange and might make the game spawn something very useful as a branch of his skills. There were also the jonin sensei to consider bringing in. Though even if they were teachers, Shikamaru couldn't be sure they could be trusted on the same level as peers could. Already, most of the party members had surpassed the strength of chunin and they didn't appear to be stopping. The sensei might not look on this unnatural state of being with understanding eyes.

Either way, it was a decision that had to be rolled out and decided amongst the group with a vote. And that didn't appear to be happening anytime soon since trying to get everyone together was much like herding cats.

Shikamaru groaned a little bit and went back to the binder that had the stock market. He didn't know why, but just immersing himself in the rising and falling of the lines was relaxing to him. It also brought in a mighty profit to their goals, so it was two birds with one stone.

Leaning into the work, he idly wondered what Naruto was doing.

00000000

The forest of death.

After a bit of experimenting, Jiraiya came to the conclusion that fighting at a strength only slightly larger than Naruto's was the most proficient way at getting him experience. And so he did and had been doing for a while.

Ever since Naruto unveiled Tsunade's super strength ability by crushing the head of his former teammate, Jiraiya had been seeking out answers to the enigma that was Naruto. A boy's need to keep his own secrets be damned. Jiraiya was so thoroughly spooked by that incident, that he scrounged everywhere for reasons, any reasons at all, as to why Naruto was growing in strength so quickly. After a lot of unwarranted searching and a few slaps to the face, Jiraiya came to the conclusion that he had to wait for the student himself to wake up and begin a forced questioning, one that he wouldn't be getting wishy-washy answers from if it killed him. During that time, however, he did a few underhanded things to get that information. Things like transforming into Naruto and trying to skillfully pry Anko for answers.

The only thing he got was a swift kick to the balls.

So imagine his surprise when Naruto himself asked him to join something so strange and unheard of, that even he, one of a wisdom gained through the strangeness of the ninja world, had no words for. After a few seconds of thought, he asked to be shown just exactly what Naruto had been accomplishing by the use of the game and was astounded by what he saw.

If the guidebook were to be wielded correctly, his student could very well become the most powerful being in the world.

Which led to Naruto's current situation of being thrown through the paces by Jiraiya. There were a few clones a ways off practicing sealing, a few more training in the weapons that they had gotten so far, and one doing exercises that Fu taught him on how to control the bijuu chakra.

Speaking of the enigmatic verdette, she was currently training with Anko. They were doing all a manner of things. From trap detection to how to lie effectively and especially on her battle awareness. After her fight with Kabuto, she realized that all the strength in the world wouldn't matter if she didn't know how to use it effectively.

00000000

_A few hours after Naruto woke up._

_After doing the things he absolutely needed to address before anything else, Naruto headed out in search of his friends and comrades in order to tell them how he wasn't dead and all. It took all of 3 minutes for someone else to find him, however, as soon as he took to the streets of Konoha._

_The buzzing sound didn't take all that long to grow in intensity considering the speed at which Fu was flying, and when it reached its zenith, she was floating just a few feet above his head. He turned around and brought a hand up to his forehead to block out the sun. "Oh hey Fu. I was just looking for you," he said casually._

_He didn't so much as blink when Fu grabbed him and fluttered up to the nearest rooftop. She was just grabby like that. When they were above the streets and out of view of the people who were surprised by the sudden flying girl, Fu sat him down and stood opposite of him. Her pose was casual, but her eyes held emotions that were hard to discern at first glance. There was anger, hurt, sadness, but most of all, relief._

"_Soo…" Naruto said, drumming his fingers together. "It's good to see you," he finally said with a smile._

_Fu nodded and sat down herself. "I, uhhh, I just got back from Taki."_

_Naruto leaned back, propping himself up with his palms. "Yeah? What were you there for?"_

"_Just needed to get my things," she said with a twinge of sadness. "Looks like I'm going to be staying here indefinitely."_

_Naruto's eyebrows knitted together in concern. "Why? I always thought your stay here was going to be temporary."_

"_It was… until news of the Akatsuki reached the village. They're starting their hunt of the Jinchuuriki in earnest, you know. It sounds like they're going to be starting with you, but I couldn't stay and endanger everyone there. I'll eventually go back, once everything settles. Still, it wasn't like I had many friends or family, so there's that." On her last sentence, she shrugged helplessly and adopted Naruto's laid back demeanor._

"_Well… shit, I'm sorry."_

_Fu waved him off. "Oh, it's fine. Plus, I get to stay here with you, my first real friend, and everyone else who's been super nice to me. How long have you been awake anyway? And what've you done so far?"_

_Naruto shrugged. "Few hours. So far I've talked to some people, helped some people, built some things that needed building, spammed clones like no one's business, and filled out my guidebook."_

_The corner of one of Fu's mouth twinged downwards for a second. "I tried to play around with it while you were asleep to see if anything would help you wake up faster, but Shikamaru wouldn't let me."_

_Naruto smiled mischievously. "Well it's a good thing you didn't, because I've got something really cool I can do now." He held out a hand, which she stared at unsurely._

"_What did you do?"_

"_Take the hand," he said, smiling like a madman._

_As soon as her fingers brushed his, they weren't there anymore. No sudden whoosh of air or a horrible sensation of being torn from reality. Just a scenery shift as the Vague Hiraishin took its course. Before she could really comprehend what was going on, Naruto had grabbed her hand and dragged her away to the ledge of a cliff._

_Looking down on the city below, she realized that they were on the monument and that his Vague Hiraishin had brought them initially about 10 meters away from the edge of the cliff._

"_So, tell me," Naruto said, sitting down on the hard rock "what happened after I was knocked out? How was your fight with Kabuto? And why is my hand like this?" Naruto asked, looking down at his slightly mismatched fingers._

"_In that order," Fu said, mimicking his actions "After a bit of healing, everyone got some rest and headed back to Konoha. Not well. And… Tsunade couldn't find your original fingers, so I made a few of my own to reattach instead of yours. It wasn't perfect, so they don't match that well."_

_Naruto was shocked to silence for a moment, gazing at his hand in wonder. "What? Y-You what? How is that possible?" His gaze immediately shot to her hands, afraid what he might see and had missed at first, and was relieved to see that she had all the fingers that she should have._

_Fu smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah, Tsunade said it probably wouldn't work on things like hands or arms. Since fingers are simple, I just asked Chomei to make some for you before the nerve damage was irreparable." She chuckled without any humor in her voice "I went through a lot of fingers trying to make ones that looked even a little like yours. Discoloration was the least of my worries when I finally got one that didn't have chitin on it."_

_Naruto's shock got replaced by wonder throughout her explanation. "That's kinda awesome," he said enthusiastically. "What about your fight? He didn't seem that strong. You should have wiped the floor with him."_

_Fu grimaced and brought her knees up to her chest. "Did you know that some of the most powerful people in the world have died in some of the stupidest ways possible? Poison in wine, a rock on the side of the road, a wild animal they hadn't paid attention to. The list is endless, really."_

_Naruto leveled a confused look. "Soo… youu… tripped? That happens to everyone at one point or another. You were just unlucky."_

_Fu shook her head. "I was trying to say that powerful people who don't pay attention are just as susceptible to death as weak people who don't pay attention. I thought my chakra armor was the best defense in the world, but he had something that so perfectly circumvented it, I almost died in the first few seconds of the fight. He had these chakra scalpels that cut right through the chakra armor and into my chest. If Chomei hadn't taken over and ripped him to shreds, I would have died."_

_Naruto didn't know what to say. His mouth was left open as he tried to think up condolences._

_Fu wouldn't have any of it though. "But that's okay. I survived with a few scars and I'm only going to get stronger. Not just of body, but also of mind," she tapped her head with a smile on her face._

_Naruto smiled too. "Yeah, stronger so we can finally find out what's up this world."_

00000000

Kashikoi yawned widely and stretched out her body underneath the shade of a tree near where the real Naruto was sparring with Jiraiya. She got half the points from the fight with Kimimaru, so she was content to sit with her strength and not train seriously. It might have been hubris on her part, but she just wasn't one to train. She and Naruto got along so well that they didn't really need to practice teamwork and complex maneuvers very much.

She was just about to get back to dozing off when a silver haired man body flickered next to her. She was startled and got into an intimidating stance, keeping her head low to the ground and snarling, before she realized that it was Kakashi, a man she hadn't seem much of as of late.

"What are you doing here?" she asked lowly, sitting back down in a relaxed manner.

Kakashi looked down at the fox with his usual lazy expression. "Sorry, I can't speak fox, just dog."

The fox harrumphed and pointed her tail at Naruto with a questioning glare. Talking with the Uzumaki for extended periods of time got her used to the notion of humans understanding her speech.

Kakashi seemed to understand what the fox was implying. "Sasuke said he wanted a match with Naruto, so I'm here to see how it happens. And to make sure no one gets hurt."

'The Uchiha, huh? I haven't seen him for a while. I wonder how he's been doing,' the fox remarked silently to herself. Although they didn't interact all that much, she did have memories of him giving up some of his uneaten meat when Team 7 ate together. That alone was enough for her to consider him a good person.

She didn't have to wonder long as he burst into the clearing, looking like someone who folded up frustration incarnate and shoved it up his ass to stew there for a few days. His hands were balled up in fists. He was grinding his teeth together, creating audible grinding sounds noticeable even from Kashikoi's fair distance. Veins popped up everywhere on his body, like he'd been coiling his muscles together for an indeterminately long time. All in all, he just didn't look healthy. Kashikoi half expected him to implode on himself at any moment.

Walking after him was a nervous looking Sakura Haruno. It seemed as if she'd confronted him on his way to see the Uzumaki and had come to a forced agreement with him. Though that didn't keep the worry from permeating her aura.

Jiraiya and Naruto stopped their fight to watch Sasuke stalk up to them. Sakura stayed her pace a few feet away from them, looking like she could bolt from fear in a moment's notice.

Sasuke pointed at Naruto and smirked as confidently as he could. It just made his contorted face look even more contorted. "Fight me," Sasuke said loudly and clearly.

Naruto looked from side to side, then back to Sasuke. "Are you okay man? You don't look so good."

Sasuke's smirk turned to a grimace. "Once I fight you, I'll be better. Now are we going to fight, or are you going to chicken out again?"

Naruto looked to Jiraiya, who shrugged. "I'm okay with it. Just don't use Tsunade's strength technique, or the rasengan."

The Uzumaki cautiously looked at Sasuke. "Okay," Naruto said with a shrug. "I guess that sounds good."

Normally, Naruto would have been whooping for joy and blustering on about how hard he was going to kick his ass. However, there was just something off about Sasuke. Naruto resigned to using less of his strength in the fight to find out what was wrong with him.

The two walked to opposite ends of the fields and waited in the middle for Jiraiya to call the match. From off in the deeper recesses of the woods, Fu and Anko jumped out and landed on a few branches with a good view of the fight. Neither really needed any briefing on what was going on, as it was rather evident.

As soon as Jiraiya lowered his hand, Sasuke began racing towards Naruto by skirting the edges of the trees. He withdrew kunai and shuriken and threw them at Naruto. Naruto, for his part, didn't even need to move. He pulled out the bo staff, batted away any shuriken that would have his body, and caught the kunai by their loops with his free hand. He threw the kunai back at Sasuke even faster than they were thrown at him. Sasuke dodged around them as they impacted the trees to his sides, getting buried up to their hilts in the thick trunks.

Sasuke appeared out of nowhere at Naruto's side and sent a roundhouse kick aiming at the blond's head. Naruto didn't even need to parry or block the strike. With an open palm, he caught Sasuke's foot and pulled as hard as he could, throwing the Uchiha into a tree.

He landed on the tree with his feet and pushed off, launching like a bullet at Naruto with his fist cocked back. Naruto crossed his arms in front of him and braced himself for the blow. Although it didn't do much damage to him, it did cause him to stumble out of the line of trees and into the clearing of grass. Naruto threw his bo staff to the side for the moment and raised his hands up for some fisticuffs.

As soon as they were up, the two rivals began to partake in some hand to hand combat. Sasuke's blows, although definitely still accurate and well thought out for someone of age and experience level, weren't on par with his usual self. They were more focused on hitting Naruto rather than doing damage to him. Naruto, for his part, didn't really have to do all that much to dodge, block, or parry the wild, rage fueled strikes constantly being sent for his face.

"Look… Sasuke…" Naruto tried to get out in between shuffling around the Uchiha's moves. "Do you need… help? You're not… the usual… you."

"And what do you know?!" Sasuke growled out, jumping away from him and getting a good distance between the two. "You're strong because of all the people who've showered you with attention and teaching. And you don't even need that power! You have no ambition! Become the hokage my ass! You know as well as I do that the hokage needs more than just strength, while that's all I need!"

Naruto nearly tore his hair out of his head in frustration. "But what do _you_ need power for? See, this is your problem. What we have here, is a failure to communicate."

Sasuke roared in indignation and rapidly went through handseals. From his mouth, a giant spigot of flame burst forth and incinerated everything in its path to Naruto.

Naruto darted around the fireball and got all the way up to Sasuke's side before he even knew he was there. The Uzumaki planted a foot on his side and launched him what had to have been 10 meters away.

Sasuke flipped around and landed in a crouch, eyes blazing with the semi-matured Sharingan for the first time in the fight. "_How_ are you so strong?" Sasuke hissed between clenched teeth. "There's no special technique, no special fighting style, no demon arts, no curse seal, no nothing! What have you been taught that got you so strong?"

Naruto guardedly put up one of his hands. "Okay, I resent the fact that you think I've only gotten stronger because I have a really good teacher. That's kinda true because Anko is kickass-" there was a whoop from a certain spectator and a few loud claps that brought an unwilling smile on Naruto's face "-but I've gotten stronger because of training and getting battle experience. There's not much more to it than that." And for his part, he was actually telling a little bit of the truth. It wasn't like Naruto was using any special talents afforded to him by the game to beat Sasuke.

For his part, Sasuke was only getting more and more psyched out. His breathing was short and uneven. Even with the red of his Sharingan, it was easy so see the angry red veins in the whites of his eyes. And if Naruto was mistaken, there was even a little bit of foam on the edges of his mouth. Sasuke lowered himself to the ground and charged at Naruto like an animal.

Naruto put up his arms again and started blocking or dodging the furious strikes. Sasuke had forgotten any semblance of form or technique. His strikes, although very strong, lacked any defensibility. It would have been easy to incapacitate him were it not for the fact that Naruto didn't know if he could do it without severely hurting him. If the Uchiha had been fighting less like an aggro'd rhinoceros, it might have been possible to take him out safely. That option taken away, Naruto was left on the defensive, desperately hoping for Sasuke to tucker himself out before he messed up and let a strike through his guard.

Eyeing the area next to him, Naruto jumped back explosively, taking Sasuke somewhat off guard, and got into a wild looking crouch. Sasuke growled and charged at Naruto, not taking any time to figure out if there was a trap ahead of him. Naruto, in a burst of motion, swiped the bo staff up off the ground, twisted a section of it, and pointed it at Sasuke. Senbon began flying from the end and impacted him in the torso and abdomen.

Like a tranqued bull, Sasuke ran for a few more strides, completely ignoring the needles protruding from his body before his eyes rolled up behind his head as he collapsed like a sack of flesh.

As soon as the fight was over, Anko, Kakashi, Sakura, Fu, and Jiraiya all body flickered into view. Kakashi sighed into his face and picked up Sasuke, already beginning to pick out the needles from his abdomen.

"Were those tranquilizers?" the aloof teacher asked.

Naruto wordlessly nodded. "What the fuck happened to him since I was gone?"

Anko nodded, bringing Naruto to her side protectively. "He fought like a goddamn animal."

Sakura, who had been wringing her fingers off to the side the whole time, walked up and took Sasuke's other arm, letting his weight fall on her shoulders. "He's been like this ever since he met up with his brother."

A flash of realization hit Naruto. He remembered Gai saying something to him about what Itachi did to track him down back on the road to find Tsunade. Meeting his brother who had murdered his entire clan and summarily getting beaten to a pulp might have had a much bigger impact than what Naruto realized what might have been at the time.

"Naruto…" Kakashi said lowly "although you were just promoted to jonin, thus not being a part of team 7 anymore and not having any legal responsibility to do so, I like to think that you still see Sasuke as a friend. So could you please help him? He might not show it, but I truly think he sees you as one of his only friends."

Sasuke began stirring and blearily opened his eyes back up to the world. They were unfocused and he appeared to still be under the influence of the tranqued senbon.

Naruto looked up to Anko with worry and fear evident in his eyes. Anko saw those eyes and realized what Naruto was probably planning to do and vehemently shook her head. Naruto nodded rapidly in return and Anko, with pursed lips, gave him the 'we'll talk about it later' look. He crossed his arms and pouted at her, lowering his gaze more. "I- We'll visit him in the hospital," Naruto finally said "I think I know something that'll get him back to normal."

Kakashi nodded and Sakura looked down sullenly. The both of them body flickered away with Sasuke in between them.

As soon as they were gone, Naruto backed away from Anko's hold and said, "I really think we should consider making him a party member."

Anko shook her head. "Bad idea." An idea that was backed up by both Fu and Jiraiya as they shook their heads with chilling synchronism.

"That kid reminds of how Orochimaru used to be," Jiraiya murmured. "Always looking for more and more power. Never content with taking the normal route and never content with the goal he has."

"He doesn't feel right," Fu said plainly.

Naruto fumbled over his words for a second as he tried to mentally come up with the best way to persuade them otherwise. "I-I can't really sympathize with him, I guess. But come on, I got some good hits in on Itachi back when I wasn't leveled up from fighting Kimimaru and Orochimaru. If all Sasuke wants is the power to kill him, then I think him becoming a party member is a good idea. It's not like I could have gained the power that I have without the game. Plus, it isn't like Itachi doesn't deserve it."

Jiraiya and Anko shared a look. "What next after that?" Anko quietly asked.

"What?"

"What will Sasuke want after he gets revenge?" Anko asked.

Naruto shrugged "That's up to him. For all I know, he'll become a gardener and retire to the easy life."

"But he won't," Anko said resolutely "people whose goal consist solely of revenge and killing are doomed to live a short and unhappy life. I refuse to give that kid that sort of power. He doesn't have the wherewithal to use it right after he gets what he wants."

"Well… what about you?" Naruto asked.

Anko narrowed her eyes dangerously "What about me?"

"Wasn't your whole goal in life just to kill Orochimaru? You seem pretty happy most of the time."

Anko breathed out slowly and against her throat, almost to the point where it sounded like she was growling. "If that's the conclusion that you've come to, then recruit him. I don't really care anymore. Oh, and don't mind me, I'm just your master trying to impart some life advice on you." With that said, she turned around and body flickered away.

Jiraiya looked at Naruto with disapproval evident on his brow. "You done fucked up kid. That was just about the absolute worst topic to bring up."

Naruto's gaze was floored to the grassy turf. "T-That didn't come out the way I meant it."

"Exactly. Training's over. Go talk to her."

Naruto nodded, took a deep breath, and ran into the forest, widening the range of his sensory perception as far it could go as he did so. The range of his chakra sensory might have gotten much farther, but Anko was still one of the fastest people he knew. Catching her was going to be hard.

Fu looked up at the towering man. "And what about you?"

Jiraiya reached into his vest and pulled out a scroll. Unsealing the contents revealed a demonic looking book bound in black leather and etched with pentagrams galore. "As far as I know, every member of the team gets a piece of unique 'hardware'. What did you get?"

"Something that tracks the abilities and genealogies of my bug colonies."

This little tidbit of information definitely piqued the interest of the Sannin. "You have bug colonies? Like the Aburame?"

Fu shrugged. "Nothing battle ready, but I'm getting there. Why? What're you holding?"

Jiraiya grinned mischievously at the Jinchuuriki. "Probably the single most important piece of hardware available."

Fu was left just as confused as anyone would be as Jiraiya ran off in the direction of the Hokage administration, where Tsunade was.

**AN/ Intrigue!?**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	32. a sudden departure

Chapter 32

Naruto sped through the trees at a destructive pace. As he searched desperately for Anko with his sensing jutsu, he barely took his surroundings in at all. Every now and then, he'd misstep and fly face first into one of the ancient trees of the forest of death, only saved by the reflexes that he'd poured his points into previously.

The feeling of her chakra was always on the edge of his field, but as soon as he started in her direction, she'd begin running up again. Frustrated, he eventually came to a stop on one of the branches and yelled out "Come on Anko! I'm sorry!" he stood there for a second to catch his breath and to see if her position changed at all. It hadn't. "You know! You're being really immature about this whole thing!" Naruto shouted again. "I'm the one who's 13! You're like, what? 25? 24? I don't actually know, but the point is, you're the adult here! We can talk, right?!"

Not expecting much of any response, he began to jump across the branches to her position once more, albeit at a slower pace. Her position didn't change much at all, which relieved him, but he couldn't help to feel slightly unnerved. Silence reigned heavily on the forest, a sign that something big and dramatic was about to happen. Looking around to make sure nothing had its eyes on him, as he felt tingles run down the base of his neck, he withdrew his bo staff just in case and hurried his pace towards her location.

When he finally found her, she was sitting rather high up on one of the trees. Her body was slouched heavily on the trunk and her legs hung limply on either side of the branch. As he wordlessly came closer to her, he saw that there was a deep frown sunken into her face and that her eyes spoke of intense thinking. Deciding to give her a little bit more time, he draped his body across a few branches below her that made for an excellent recumbent support. After she hadn't spoken for a few minutes, he leaned his head back and relaxed his body fully against the branches.

Naruto didn't know how much time had passed, but judging by the shadows' change in position, he had to guess it to be at least an hour or so.

"Come up here," Anko suddenly said, jumping Naruto out of his trance. The Uzumaki drowsily walked up the trunk to Anko and waited a few moments at her level. She glanced at him and patted the branch near her crotch. As she got up into a sitting up position, Naruto sat on the branch as well and leaned back against her. Anko wrapped her arms around him and tucked his head under her chin.

"You're right, you know," she said quietly. "Up until a lot more recently than you realize, I've been consumed with the need to get the strength to destroy that man. Then, once I realized I couldn't do that without resorting to becoming the same kind of monster he is, I learned a few different double suicide techniques with the thought that I'd immediately put them to use if I ever came across him."

She paused just long enough for Naruto to ask "Did you do one of them during the chunin exams?"

Anko breathed out slowly. "Yeah. Didn't work thou-OOOMPHF" the air was driven from her chest by Naruto suddenly driving his head forward and backward with as much power as he had.

"Yeaaahhp," Anko wheezed out "I guess I deserve that one."

"You hypocrite," Naruto said vindictively "'Now, you have to promise me you won't die no matter what.' And then what do you do? Double suicide. You fucking moron."

Anko coughed a little. "That promise was made _after_ the second trial of the chunin exam, so you can suck a dick... Gah, fuck."

"What?" Naruto asked.

"You know I'm not good with touchy-feely things. I've been on this branch for an hour thinking up my little monologue, then you derail the whole conversation."

"If you didn't account for my headbutting you in the chest, then you didn't do a very good job thinking that monologue up."

Anko grumbled a few choice words about the content of Naruto's character to herself. "Anyway," she said, getting back on track "I was super bent on killing him, learned a few double suicide techniques, then I threw myself at work, hoping to regain the trust of the people of Konoha. It worked to an extent, but I never really felt close to them. It was never the same after I was rescued. Even the newer generations that didn't know about my situation didn't trust me; I guess it was just my personality throwing people off on that one, though.

"Then you happened. I didn't really know a lot about you other than the fact that you were the Jinchuuriki and that you had quite the mouth on you. And, I honestly didn't really like you at first. But… you stuck around. You put up with all my little bouts of insanity and deadly quirks and you somehow managed to worm your way into my heart. What I'm trying to say is, you're special to me kid. And if I ever see that snake faced bastard in the flesh ever again, I'm going to run in the opposite direction of him. Because I realized a while ago that staying alive for your sake is much more important than getting my revenge on him."

Naruto and Anko sat in silence for a while. Because they were so high up, the sun was able to poke its head out of the canopy of leaves. Birds would fly up, chasing each other and making song every now and then. It was comfortable there.

"So…" Naruto finally said "I can't just let Sasuke have that power, because he'd want to go get revenge and it'll make him unstable in the head. And in order to let that hatred and need for revenge go, he needs to find something more important than it on his own."

"Got it in one."

Naruto breathed out heavily. "It's hard though. I feel like I really understand how he feels, like there's no one out there even paying attention. He's having a hard time and I am his friend, so I'm going to help him… but I don't know how. What should I do?" he asked helplessly.

"I don't know Naruto. Do what you can. Try to talk to him. Communicate. Even if you have to get a bit rough with him."

Naruto grunted a half-hearted affirmation. "…Thanks, by the way. For always being there for me."

Anko began twirling her fingers through his hair. "Yeah, don't mention it… now that I think about it, you outrank me, don't you?"

"Technically."

"Now that you're a jonin, you could probably get a free space in the jonin apartments. In fact, you could probably move in with me, if you want to."

Naruto chuckled nervously. He'd been to Anko's apartment once before. Needless to say, it wasn't exactly what one would call 'neat'… or any other positive adjective for that matter. "Hehe, are ya sure?"

Anko buried her chin into Naruto's scalp as hard as she could, which was pretty hard. "I've been cleaning," she ground out indignantly. "Plus, if you're staying there, I could get rent for free."

Naruto finally managed to get out of Anko's chin lock and ask "What do you mean? I thought jonin lived there for free."

"Special jonins get special deals. Only the full-fledged elites get free rent. And it's got a park near it too, for Kashikoi. Come on, the apartments are pretty posh, if you're into that stuff. You get a free membership to the hotsprings, there's a dojo downstairs, fully stocked ninja gear outfitter, the works."

Naruto took a few moments to answer. "I probably _have_ been outstaying my welcome at the Inuzukas. But, since I'm practically in charge of Fu's wellbeing, she'll have to come as well."

"Awesome!" she yelled out "we're going to have so much fun. We can wear matching outfits, and wear weird pajamas, and we're going to have so much more room for activities. I can teach you information extraction the Anko way. Bite you with snakes-"

"Please don't make me regret this decision."

"-So you can get a resistance to the stuff. Gosh, if I didn't know better, then I'd think that you think that my teaching style is harsh."

Naruto's eyes lit up with realization. "Oh wait, since I'm a jonin and all, can I order you around?"

Anko grinned dangerously "Not unless you want a NOOGIE" at the last word, she started noogie'ing Naruto's scalp, much to his consternation.

The two of them bickered back and forth until both were red in the face, frustrated to no end, yet had beaming smiles on their faces. After that, they lapsed into a comfortable silence and just laid there.

00000000

Kage administration.

Tsunade looked at the ungodly piece of hardware in front of her. It looked like the kind of book that one would sacrifice babies to in order to summon demons. In fact, there were even pictures of craven, tortured looking beasts organized into neat sections on the pages. Each advancing page gave way to even more pictures of wicked and depraved humans or animals. Standing with a triumphant looking smirk and his arms across his chest, two steps away from booming with haughty laughter was her teammate, Jiraiya.

The busty kage sighed deeply, then brought her tired eyes up at him. "Okay, I'll bite. What is this?"

Jiraiya's smile grew, if that were even possible. "This? This little book right here? Oh, nothing. Just the thing that's going to bring the world to peace."

Tsunade began rubbing her temples, just a few wise cracks away from completely losing her temper. "I swear to god, if you don't stop speaking in riddles, I'm going to punch a hole in your chest."

Jiraiya's ever widening smile was reduced to a smug smirk. "Simply put, any person, monster, or thing that's in this book is something that anyone can fight merely by accepting a prompt."

"And this helps us… how?"

"Think about it. Thanks to the videogame we're in, we can only grow stronger through grinding training to get experience, or to fight real battles. My book, which I'm calling the Infernal Training Device, or the ITD for short, bridges the gap between the two. The fights that you play out get you real life experience, which goes to making you stronger. The real beauty of the thing is, we don't have to seek out strong opponents in real life in order to get experience from fighting them."

Tsunade stared at the book in front of her for a few seconds, then leaned back and breathed out heavily. "So this is basically a power leveling tool?"

"Eh, there are a few stipulations. For example, the experience gained from fighting is lowered to 10% what one would normally get if the option [Immortal] is turned on. [Immortal] just means that if someone dies in one of these simulations, then they don't die in real life."

"So it's a potentially dangerous tool as well?"

Jiraiya nodded.

Tsunade clasped her hands together and began impatiently tapping her foot against the ground. "So how is this… ITD going to bring about world peace?"

Jiraiya chuckled a bit nervously and began pacing back and forth across from her. "Well… here's the thing that you're really not going to like."

Tsunade's eyes narrowed as she leaned on the desk with her balled hands covering her mouth. By the piercing look she was giving her teammate, one could infer that she really wasn't in the mood for bullshit. "Continue…" she strained out.

"I want…" Jiraiya said slowly, equally to soften the blow of the announcement as well as to give him more time to figure out how to say the rest of his proposal, "to take Naruto on a training trip around the elemental nations and attempt to broker a deal for a permanent ceasefire, try to get in contact with all the Jinchuuriki that we can, and convince the nations to gather up a punitive force in order to hunt down the Akatsuki, wherever they might be hiding."

For the few seconds after Jiraiya stopped speaking, the air around the room was filled a palpable silence as Tsunade refused to so much as twitch a facial muscle in response to his statement. Finally, she said "I presume you've thought this idea out thoroughly."

Jiraiya nodded. "Yes."

Tsunade flicked her eyes down at the paperwork in front of her, waited a few more moments, then finally said "you are aware of all the risks you are putting Naruto in? That the Akatsuki is on the move and hunting down all the Jinchuuriki they can their hands on? That your hardware is very, very lethal if used incorrectly? That Naruto is as of yet, still an impressionable 13 year old child?"

Jiraiya gave Tsunade a hard stare. "I wouldn't have brought the proposal forward if I hadn't. I have very effective safeguards against any and all trials and tribulations Naruto might go through on this trip."

"Will it just be the two of you?"

"Yes."

"Even accounting for his master's and Fu's attached state to him?"

"Yes."

"…And you will embark upon this trip with the utmost care and trepidation that it will call for?"

"Yes."

Tsunade was silent for a few more beats. "How long will you be planning to be away?"

Jiraiya shrugged. "It might take as short as six months, to as long as five years. Though, I'm guessing that it'll hit somewhere in between."

Tsunade looked back up to Jiraiya and said "if you somehow manage to convince Naruto, Anko, and Fu to go along with it, I'll let you do this. Lord knows you'd probably do it even if I said no."

Jiraiya smirked. "Who do you take me for? I'm the good teammate, remember?"

00000000

In a certain far away land.

Orochimaru's breathing was pained and labored. It'd taken him two days to regain enough chakra to shed out of his stealth snake form, and even then just barely. From there, he had to walk all the way to his base in the Land of Rice Fields, not able to form chakra or run for longer than an hour or so each day. Then, when he got there, one of his guardians ambushed and nearly killed him for the second time in one week by bisection. Once the guardian was dead from multiple stab wounds, Orochimaru managed to grow a serpent tail and crawl/slither his way into the lower, far more dangerous levels of his secret base. There, he had to drag himself into one of his complicated machines and go about the arduous process of artificial reinvigoration. He'd only had to use it once before, and was glad that he kept it around.

While he stewed there, waiting for the syringes sticking out of his torso, head, arms, and tail to completely plunge their contents into his body, he began plotting his next move. The loss of Kabuto and Kimimaru had completely drained him of all the elite forces he had left. That meant that he was definitely going to have to go to one of his ancillary bases and see how they were progressing. If there were any promising people, he'd have to amp them up and turn their brain to mush so as to serve on his personal task force.

That, or he could just go back to the Akatsuki. Although he didn't depart from them on friendly terms, considering the murmurings he'd already heard from the spies in the base, it sounded like they could use any S-ranks they could get their hands on. Joining them also meant that he would probably be privy to all the information he could ever wish for on his newest pet project.

Just thinking of the Uzumaki practically made his mouth water. The ability to learn any advanced technique he wanted in the span of days or weeks. Genetic malleability. The power of the Kyuubi. Even if Naruto didn't have the Sharingan, using Naruto's body, Orochimaru could easily just take the sharingan from Sasuke and imbed it into himself.

The Snake Sannin rasped out a command and there was a lower tier spy immediately crouching down in front of him, eyes averted to the ground.

"Get me a list of all the Jinchuuriki and their whereabouts," Orochimaru plainly said, not exactly in the mood for terrifying the newbies.

The ninja nodded silently and padded away in search of the right intel.

Orochimaru's mouth slid into a grin wide enough that it split his face in two. The easiest way to find a wolf is to wait where the deer graze, after all.

00000000

At Anko's apartment.

Naruto, Kahikoi, and Fu looked around and took in their new place of residence. Anko wasn't lying when she said she'd been cleaning, though there were still many ways in which the place spoke of having residency. There were dishes in the sink, scrolls and papers were haphazardly scattered about and then hastily organized into a pile on the main table, the refrigerator was practically empty and the freezer was iced over, the laundry room was piled high with clothes while the machines hummed in the background, and the bed wasn't made. That being said, there at least wasn't any garbage lying around, there weren't any thongs anywhere that could be stepped on, and there must have been a scent thing plugged in somewhere, because it smelled lightly of lavender-vanilla.

Anko was in the doorframe biting her lip. While she usually wasn't one to care about how people saw her, watching the two mill about in her home was a little bit unnerving. Any tiny detail that she'd forgotten to notice when she left in the morning was jumping out at her and giving her second thoughts about sharing an apartment with the two.

In the end, Naruto hopped on the couch in the living room and brought his hands up, facing Fu and Anko. "Looks great!" he said enthusiastically. Although he'd been recently living in cleaner situations, as an orphan he hadn't learned much of any sensibilities for keeping a clean room, so he didn't mind Anko's partial slovenliness. Kashikoi leapt up on his lap with silent agreement.

Fu hopped on the recliner next to Naruto and nodded, reclining until recumbent and taking a deep breath. "Oh yeah, I could get used to this." Fu, for her part, wasn't living outside in the woods – her living situation in Taki – so anything indoors with working water and electricity was fine in her book. And that went double if she didn't have to share it with a family of dog people.

"Are you sure it's okay?" Anko asked. "You're still and honorary Inuzuka. Were they… offended? because you decided to live somewhere else?"

"Me living there was always supposed to be temporary." Naruto said offhandedly, finding the remote for the TV and flipping it on. "You got any games?"

"Games?" Fu asked "Like board games?"

Naruto looked at her, shocked, and asked "you don't know what videogames are?"

"Do they run on electricity?"

"Yes."

"Then no."

Naruto looked at Anko expectantly, who grinned and dug a few controllers out of a cabinet under the TV. She tossed one to Naruto and Fu and sat down, watching Naruto lecture Fu in the general idea of videogames. It was starting to feel like she had a comfortable couple of years ahead of her in sharing her apartment with these two.

Then someone knocked on the door.

Anko got up, leaving the two to their devices, and answered it, shocked to find Jiraiya in the doorframe.

"Hey Anko," he said quickly and in a hushed tone, wearing a smile that was strained and obviously fake. "I need to talk to you privately."

Anko looked back at the two and saw that they were just starting to get into some platformer or another. She stepped out of the apartment and closed the door behind her, giving Jiraiya a stern 'I'm not in the mood for your usual antics' stare. A stare, by the way, that was made specifically to be used on Jiraiya.

Jiraiya's painted smile vanished immediately. His eyes were hard and unforgiving and his lips were pressed into a thin line. "I'm going to say something that you're not going to like to hear," he said slowly and articulately.

Anko's throat dropped to her stomach. Whenever Jiraiya decided to step up and be serious for a change, something was always wrong. She bobbed her head down once, already preparing for the worst.

"I'm taking Naruto on a training trip around the nations," Jiraiya said. There was no verbal cushioning, only a relating of facts. "He'll be gone with me for a couple of years. You can't come, and neither can Fu."

Anko stopped breathing for a fraction of a second. When she trusted her voice, she shakily asked "why now?"

Without changing expression, Jiraiya said "things are progressing much faster than I thought they would be. Naruto's in danger, Fu's in danger, you're in danger, everyone's in danger. The hardware I received from becoming a party member will advance his training exponentially. But it can also be dangerous. To lower the risk to the lowest amount possible, I'll give my full attention to him. That also means that he will have to be free from distractions. Also, I can't stay here for long. I have a spy network to keep up with, my promise to the Mizukage might be checked in at any moment, and I have plans to try and instate a permanent ceasefire between the nations."

Anko pursed her lips. "I'm his master. I have it in writing and that means I'm entitled to know his every movement."

Jiraiya sighed. "I can send scrolls from on the road. You'll know his every move and his every thought as I know them."

Anko leaned back against the door, lowering her head and clutching her eyes with her hand. "You're such a fucking jerk. Why couldn't you have come just a few hours earlier?"

"Did you ask Naruto to move in with you?" Jiraiya asked, inferring the situation.

Anko nodded, still not showing her face. "And Fu."

Jiraiya tentatively reached out a hand and tried to, as comfortingly as he could, pat her on the shoulder. "I'm sorry about a lot of things, Anko." Jiraiya said somberly. "What my teammate did to you, for not being there when you got back, and for what I'm doing to you now. But this is for the best. Naruto has to grow. He's strong and he has a good head on his shoulders, but he's still just a kid."

Anko breathed in and out deeply. "Are the Akatsuki on the move?"

"More than ever before. There's been rumblings that they're specifically going after Naruto, but I know bullshit when I hear it. Most likely, they'll be going after him last. He needs to be strong for when that happens. Stronger than me, stronger than Akatsuki, stronger than anyone has ever been before."

She nodded in grim acceptance. "I knew something like this was going to happen at some point. I always thought I'd be there for him when it happened, though. And when it didn't happen, I held out hope that just training in Konoha would be enough. Guess not."

"You accept this?" Jiraiya asked, more than a little shocked. He'd been fully expecting to pull rank on her and force her to accept the training trip.

Anko grinned darkly, then chuckled evilly. "I'm not going to see him away with an unrepentant pervert, however. If you corrupt him, put weird thoughts in his head, do anything you shouldn't… I will gut you like the rotting trout you are when you come back."

"I won't bring him to brothels, if that's what you're asking. But he is a boy going through puberty. I'm not going to stop him unless he goes out of line, which I don't think he will."

Anko gained a far off look in her face. "He's… hopeful, and pure. A lot's happened to him and he still isn't disillusioned. Just don't be too hard on him. He's more fragile than he looks."

Jiraiya nodded. He held out a hand to her, which she took a hold of and squeezed as hard as she could. Jiraiya knew that it wasn't out of any personal frustration to him, as much as it was just about the only thing she could take control over in that situation.

Afterwards, she invited Jiraiya into the apartment to explain the situation to Naruto and Fu. They didn't take it well, but with Anko teaming up with Jiraiya, Naruto was eventually swayed to go on it so long as he could write back to Anko and his friends on a daily basis.

The next two days happened in one big, long blur. Word got out that Naruto was leaving on a training trip, so everyone Naruto knew individually came to find him and give him their best. Try as he might, Naruto never found Sasuke in that timeframe. He was told by Kakashi that Sasuke had left a note in the hospital saying that he needed to do some soul searching in the ruins of Uchiha clan home. It was hard for him, but Naruto eventually came to the realization that he wasn't going to see Sasuke before he went on the training trip.

He was given a lot of gifts from just about everyone that he'd ever interacted with to help with the trip. Yugao came by and gave him an actual, hand-to-god, real katana sword; one that took months to properly forge, saying that it was for bringing Tsunade to Konoha, who managed to save Hayate's life. Ino gave him the newest batch of her cures, toxins, and solvents. Chouji gave him some high calorie road eating snacks. Shikamaru gave some sagely advice. Kiba gave him some special fox kibbles. Hana gave him some fox meds. Shino brought a special honey that made any nasty tasting food taste sweet. Hinata gave him a special cream for injuries and a lot of blushes. Sakura gave him a hug and a high-level medical textbook. Kakashi gave him some porn, which was promptly thrown away. Lee gave him some leg weights. Neji managed to get some Hyuuga training gis (plural of gi). Tenten gave him some artisan throwing kunai. Tsunade gave him a kiss on the forehead and a promise to make sure everything would be better when he came back. And Fu gave him something special. A bug she bred that would constantly excrete a pheromone that would track his location at all times. As soon as he channeled chakra into the bug, it would ignite a trail back to Fu and immediately let her know where he was and that he was in danger.

And just like that, Naruto was at the gates, his back turned to the world, facing all of his friends. Naruto scratched the back of his head and chuckled nervously. "So… I guess this is it for a few years."

Everyone, in a group, and individually, walked forward and gave Naruto one last parting word. Most were heartfelt, some were snarky, and some made him laugh, until Anko came forward wrapped her arms around him. Tears were streaming from her eyes. She didn't say anything because nothing had to be said. Naruto understood her sentiment and gave her a brilliant smile and a thumbs-up.

Anko tore herself away from him and stood with everyone else. Tenten came forward gave him a hug as well. When they were in front of each other, she nervously ground her heel into the dirt and didn't manage to meet his gaze. "Sorry that I haven't been talking with you, or anyone really. My dad got hurt in the invasion and couldn't work the forge. So, I after a bit, I decided to become the world's greatest marksman blacksmith. Help the store and the village, and everything. That isn't really an excuse for holing myself away, though."

Naruto shrugged. "No harm, no foul."

Tenten smiled. She seemed to hesitate with her next words, then decided to say it anyway. "Listen, Anko and Fu care for you a lot."

Naruto nodded. "I know. I care for them too."

Tenten looked from side to side, then leaned in real close. "I mean… like a lot a lot." She leaned back and wiggled her eyebrows some "just keep in mind that they're here for you when you get back."

Naruto's cheeks flushed lightly for unknown reasons as Tenten went with everyone else. Fu walked up to him last, flashing her toothy smile and bringing her hand out for a bumping. Naruto smiled as well and met her fist with his. "Don't get hurt too bad," Fu said. "Oh, and don't die. It'd be a pain to have to avenge you."

Naruto smiled as well. "Same goes to you."

And then Jiraiya managed to usher Naruto away from the gates. For as long as they were in view, Naruto was looking back, waving vigorously. Only when they were out of view did Naruto finally begin walking at Jiraiya's pace. "So…" Naruto said "where are we going first?"

"Sand, then Stone, then Cloud. We'll make a detour to Mist as soon as Yagura decides he wants to bank in the favor I owe him."

Naruto nodded. He didn't know why but he just felt in his bones that this training trip was going to be a lot of fun for him.

**AN/ I'm not going to waste 20 chapters going over the training trip. It's going to be a time skip, like in the manga/anime.**

**Oh yeah, and here's the specific hardware of everyone in the group, since I wasn't able to work them all into the story.**

**Shikamaru: Walkthrough Hand guide**

**Anko: Toxicology Hand guide**

**Ino: Chemistry Formula Hand guide**

**Chouji: Biopamphlet (something that has all his body stats in it. Fat percentage, calorie intake, chakra ratio, things like that)**

**Jiraiya: ITD**

**Tsunade: Bureaucracy Hand guide**

**Kiba: Canine fighting Hand guide**

**Hana: Veterinary Hand guide**

**Neji: Chakra Flow Hand guide**

**Lee: Super Workout Hand guide**

**Fu: Bug Genealogy and Ability Hand guide**


	33. a romantic development

Chapter 33

Naruto strode into Konoha right next to Jiraiya. He was smiling like he had somehow snuck into a surprise party for himself and was mingling with the guests right before they figured out that their plan was ruined. There was no reception for him, nor had there been any plans for there to be. So Naruto was put up with the fun task of finding and surprising all his friends who didn't know he was there yet.

He was jostled out of his daydreaming by Jiraiya, who said "come on, we should get to kage administration." He also had a shit-eating grin on his face.

With a smirk, Naruto said "you go on without me." He dug out his guidebook from his coat and tossed it to the enigmatic pervert. "I've got some catching up to do." Having said that, Naruto jumped up the nearest building and stood looking at the entirety of the village. Everything that had been broken was rebuilt bigger, taller, and sturdier. Tsunade's head was added to the monument, right next to the Fourth's, who was still missing his nose. There was a pleasant joviality that Konoha exuded to him.

He was home.

Jiraiya shook his head at the antics of his student as he began to walk to administration. The blond had grown and matured over the two and a half years training, but was still the same Naruto on the inside.

Naruto took a deep breath and hopped down to the ground, taking off in the direction of where he had last known the headquarters of Team Naruto to be.

"Ya lookin for someone in particular?" Kashikoi asked, padding next to him. She had grown a few inches more on the training trip and it was starting to look like that was the limit to her growth. Other than that, though, her features had grown sharper and her coat was more mottled than it was two and half years ago. Mixed in the orange and red were light browns, dark browns, blacks, and whites. They all came together in a way that gave her a striking looking from. Her intelligent, slit eyes peered through the crowd on the lookout for anyone familiar looking.

"Well, I definitely want to meet Anko and Fu," Naruto said, "but I should probably check out how Shikamaru's doing. While I'm there, I should check out how the rest of the party's been doing."

"Mmhmm," Kashikoi said, before suppressing a bout of laughter. "I still can't believe what Anko gave you for a parting gift."

Naruto's face turned dark as he remembered that embarrassing exchange.

00000000

_On the road_

_It was their second night on the training trip when Naruto received something strange from a sealing scroll that was carried to their location via messenger hawk. When unsealed, the item began to rapidly inflate on its own and took a rough human form. It was wearing a trench coat with a mesh undershirt, a brown miniskirt, and had a purple wig on its head. Its eyes were scarily wide and its mouth was practically a red, puckered circle that allowed for… something to be placed inside._

_On it was a note that said:_

Dear Naruto,

I remember how you have trouble sleeping alone in bed, so I decided to send something your way. Think of it as a late parting gift. Whenever you can't go to sleep, just snuggle up to it and think about me.

Love, Anko.

_Naruto looked away from the note and stared queerly at the strange doll. It didn't look like the most snuggable thing in the world. Though she might have been thinking about ease of transport, considering it could be deflated and folded down into a small square._

_Just as he was about to go to bed with that thing, Jiraiya walked in the room. Anything he had been saying was immediately put on the backburner as he looked at the sex doll turned Anko replacement. He looked from the doll to Naruto back to the doll back to Naruto._

_Naruto, not understanding his confusion, asked "what?"_

_Jiraiya was laid on the floor for the next 5 minutes unable to move from laughter._

00000000

Naruto shuddered. "Took me a month to figure out what that thing was," he muttered under his breath.

"Naruto?" a voice called out from the crowd ahead of him.

Naruto stopped in his tracks and looked to the source of the voice. Sakura Haruno might have changed a lot since his time away from Konoha, but he could still recognize her voice no matter how long he'd been away from it.

Naruto's grin must have given up his identity, because Sakura ran up to him and gave him a quick hug. She pulled away and looked up to his face, searching for the words with her mouth hanging open slightly.

"Uhm… hello?" Naruto ventured. "How's it going? How've you been? Aren't those the kinds of things we're supposed to be saying?"

"Are you… you?" Sakura asked, mouth still quite agape, her eyes scanning Naruto's body up and down.

Naruto chuckled a bit. His look had changed a bit during the trip. He'd changed out his orange and blue jumpsuit for a black trench coat with orange decals all along the back over what looked like an old-fashioned samurai kimono. Diagonally across his back was a rather large sealing scroll and the inside of his coat was absolutely brimming with loops that had scrolls of all different sizes strapped in. His facial features were somewhat sharper, but mostly unchanged save for the fact that his pupils were more elliptical; not entirely, though definitely not a solid circle.

"Yeah," Naruto replied, slightly embarrassed "I know I look kinda weird, but let me tell you, these clothes are really handy." To prove his point, he did a few handseals and pressed his hands to the lapels of his coat. Immediately, everything that was being covered by the overcoat shimmered out of existence. Naruto was left looking like a floating head with disembodied hands and legs. "It comes with a hood and gloves," he explained "and even tricks things like the Byakugan." When he released his hands, the coat shimmered back into existence.

Sakura closed her mouth and quickly smiled at him. "Wow, you've really grown. So, notice anything new about me?"

Naruto looked her up and down. "You cut your hair."

Sakura nodded, expecting him to continue.

He looked from side to side. Although she did look she'd grown as a person, wearing more functional clothing and having a countenance to her that spoke of great strength and talent, that wasn't something that could be easily put into a casual greeting of friends. "You… look… more womanly," Naruto finally decided on. Those intelligent points were really coming in handy right about then.

Sakura nodded, satisfied with the answer, and started down the road in the direction Naruto was walking. On the way to the warehouse that was still being used as a center of operations for Team Naruto, they talked all about what had happened since he left. Though he was sure they had racked up quite the repertoire of hilarious stories involving the hijinks of the Rookie 11, Naruto was more interested in the current situation that Team Naruto was in, seeing as letters from Anko were less about the inner politics of the party system and more dirty jokes and sex dolls crudely taken after her form. Really, the only thing she ever mentioned was which people Shikamaru had decided to recruit into the party and or her opinions on how many sticks were shoved up their asses on a consistent basis.

From the nine available spots, Shikamaru had recruited Sakura, Kakashi, Gai, Shino, Hinata, a guy named Yamato that Tsunade put forward, and Tsume. Sakura told him that everyone was at or above jonin level and that most of everyone had attained that rank. Apparently, Ino and Chouji enjoyed their lifestyles as chunin and decided to not rank up. Also told to him was the fact that Shikamaru, Ino, Chouji, Hana, and Kiba were out of the country doing some economic move or another that Sakura wasn't privy to. Hinata and Neji were far out in the countryside attending some sort of Hyuuga tradition thingy and Lee was with Gai doing their usual work out routine.

Just as they began to talk about the details of everyone's personal advancement, Naruto was knocked off his feet and hurled to the ground. The scary thing was, he sensed it and wasn't even able to dodge out of the way. And even he knew that he was fucking _fast_ after two and a half years of brutal power training. There was only one thing in the world that he knew could consistently get the drop on him every single time.

And that thing was Fu.

Naruto began laughing happily and got back up, trying to unlatch the ecstatic person from his back. It turned out that he didn't have to, as Fu zipped around him a few times and eventually flew at his front. This time, however, he was prepared for it and encircled his arms around her just as her arms came around him.

Fu, with a jaw cramping smile on her face, tightened her grip on him to the extreme. Although she had gotten stronger by a significant amount since he left, Naruto was stronger and more durable than her than ever. Taking up her impromptu contest of strength, he tightened his grip as well. They stalemated for a few seconds until he heard her spine pop a few times, where he slackened his grip.

She fell off of him and laughed a little, then put up a feigned pouting face. "Ahhh, you're stronger than me now. _I'm_ the one who's supposed to be stronger. You know, to make sure you don't manage to get yourself killed," she punctuated the last word of that sentence with a playful elbow jab to his abdomen. "Ohh," she cooed at the hardness of his abdomen. The verdette opened her hand and rubbed lightly on his torso muscles "though I do have to say, it does come with its perks. Mmhmm, mommy likes."

Naruto backed away, laughing embarrassedly with a flushed face. "Y-Yeah, I guess it does have its perks." Fu didn't look much different from before. Even though she had gotten taller, the fact that he now had a good half a head on her made her seem much smaller. Her hair had grown a bit longer and shaggier, but her lithe frame with tight, corded muscles remained as well as her attitude and personality. Her wardrobe was also much the same, with the exception of a few holes on the back of her top for the wings to poke through; though since her body had matured since he last saw her, more blood made it to his face on account of the amount of skin showing.

Sakura gave Fu a hard stare. "Are you in heat or something?" she asked dryly.

Fu shrugged. "Might as well be. Anyway, where are you two going?"

Sakura and Naruto quickly explained the situation to Fu, who decided to embark on their quest with them. Through the dynamic of Naruto's slight embarrassment, Fu's unceasingly suggestive remarks, and Sakura's stringent comebacks, the walk to the warehouse went by quickly for the motley crew.

Upon seeing the newly decorated exterior, Naruto was floored to the ground with his mouth dumbly hanging open. The last time he saw it, portions of the roof were falling off, the windows were all broken, it was the color of dull gray concrete, and just had an air of general gloominess. Now, though, it was painted a nice, professional white with brownish red detailing, had multiple extensions all with tall and wide windows that let in the bright sunlight, and had a roof that was completely green from the plant life.

Sakura and Fu grinned at his reaction, then excitedly pulled him inside.

Although the remodeling wasn't as extensive on the inside as the out, the change was still very appreciable. There were even more rooms divided across the whole of the building; all were of different sizes and proportions with a huge variety of uses in each of them, yet they were all somehow organized in a neat and efficient ways. In one of them, the group of three found Shino communicating with a swarm of bugs. He turned their way, expressed his surprise at seeing Naruto, exchanged pleasantries, and went back to the swarm of bugs.

As they exited, though not before Naruto made a couple dozen clones and sent them to work on his various experiments he was working on, Naruto began counting on his fingers the rest of the people he wanted to see before returning to Tsunade. He realized that since mostly everyone was gone on their own trips, Naruto was left with Iruka, Kakashi, and Anko.

When he asked Sakura where they were, she said "Iruka's teaching at the academy, so you should probably see him later, I never know where Kakashi is, and Anko's probably at the forest… of… death." Sakura trailed off at the end as her gaze was directed to the sky, where an eagle was lazily circling overhead. "That's my cue that I need to go," she said apologetically, already beginning to run in the opposite direction of where they had been going before, "we need to talk later, though! Ramen?"

"Yeah!" Naruto yelled out, her form already being swallowed up by the sparse crowd on the road. Naruto turned to Fu, "so, I guess we're going to forest of death."

The bug girl shrugged helplessly. "Actually, I'm already late to my meeting."

"What meeting?"

"My genin team."

Naruto's eyes practically bugged out of his head. "A genin team? Since when did you have a genin team? Since when were you allowed a genin team?"

Fu's wings began to twitch, telltale signs that she was itching to get off the ground. "I'll tell you later, but for now," she hovered a few inches off the ground and kissed Naruto squarely on the lips before he could react. She detached as she began to hover away, but not before saying "when we next meet, I expect a solid, binary answer to my previous and current confession." With a wink and a blown kiss, Fu zipped away, leaving Naruto dumbfounded for the second time that day.

00000000

Kage administration

Tsunade felt a profound sense of déjà vu as she beheld the smirking and smug form of her teammate with a demonic looking book open on the desk in front of her. She flipped through some of the pages at random. The book looked the same from when she last saw it with the exception that many of the pictures had letter grades ascribed onto their front. Most were A and B, with a smattering of C, D, and S mixed in there. "I take it this is a good thing?" she asked.

Jiraiya nodded, extremely proud of himself. "You won't believe how much he's grown since you last saw him."

"Grown enough to defend himself from Akatsuki agents?"

The enigmatic man laughed a good hard laugh. "Defend himself? He could probably take on the entirety of Akatsuki himself and come out on top."

"So… you made him into a god?"

Jiraiya shrugged. "There's still a lot I wanted to get into him, but we were strained on time as it was."

Tsunade held up a palm. "Hold on, let's start from the beginning, shall we? Some of your letters weren't the most detailed, so I'd like to go over it from the top."

Jiraiya breathed out heavily and pulled a chair over to sit in. He slumped into it and gestured for her to continue.

"You mentioned that you had to go into hiding almost immediately out of the gates. What was that about?"

Jiraiya paused for a few seconds as he thought up the proper way to phrase his next words. "Well, I had this feeling in my gut during a stay at the first hotel we were in, so I sent out a recon toad. We were being watched by a… let's say slippery enemy. He seemed content with watching and I couldn't do anything about it, so I had Naruto dye his hair brown and wear a face prosthetic after that. He, or it I should say, watched for the first few days, then left and came back after a few months. This kept going on for a while, and every time I got that gut feeling, I had Naruto change his appearance."

"How did you link this enemy with Naruto?"

Jiraiya shrugged. "Too many coincidences at once. Akatsuki starts beefing up their operations, I take Naruto on a training trip, a recon enemy that I can't see, much less fight, begins spying on me. I made the guess that this was a special Akatsuki agent looking for Naruto."

Tsunade nodded. "So the reason you came back was because you were finally caught?"

"The feelings only happened at night or evening, when training was over and Naruto was in the tent. Then it happened in the middle of the afternood, right when there were clones training with their elemental transformations. I came back as soon as I could."

"I see. And as for his training?"

Jiraiya smiled greatly once again. He fished around in his vest for a few seconds before pulling out Naruto's guidebook. Opening it to the first page, he handed it to Tsunade, who looked at it warily, put off edge by Jiraiya's refusal to voice what exactly was waiting for her.

She only got a few seconds in before the shock made her brain fizz out for a seconds. "L-Level 276? My level is 149 and I'm the Hokage."

"Mhmm. My level is 168, by the way. That's not all, keep on reading."

The more she read on, the more she wasn't able to believe her eyes. It was frankly unbelievable that a human could progress to such a level as that. Game or no game. Finally, Tsunade had to put the book down and leaned back to let the info sink in. "So," she said after a few minutes in silence "what else did you manage? Did you meet all the Jinchuuriki like you said you wanted to?"

At the mention of other Jinchuuriki, Jiraiya clicked his tongue and looked away from her, beginning to brew his bad thoughts on the subject matter into a frenzy. "No," he said sourly "none of them wanted anything to do with foreigners. I guess it makes sense considering the lives they've lived as demon containers, but for the love all things nice and erotic, you'd think they'd be curious about someone who has lived the same as them."

"Get burned?"

"I was corroded in a few places and I've still got a few puncture wounds that aren't healing right, but I'm fine other than that."

"What about the ceasefire? I haven't heard any news from the network so far."

"I… think… that things are going to go better now."

When Jiraiya refused to elaborate, Tsunade hardened her gaze. "If you don't tell me what you did, I'm going to assume the worst. And let me tell you, I have a very active imagination. So if you don't want your chest to implode, I suggest you tell me what you did."

"Now now, I didn't do anything bad. It's just that Naruto seems to be good at making friends with people regardless of where they came from or what kind of people they are."

One of Tsunade's eyebrows quirked in confusion. "I could have told you that."

"Could you have told me that most of the people who befriended him were girls and women?"

Tsunade's hard gaze returned.

Jiraiya shrugged. "Seems the kid has a knack for it. Shame he didn't put any of it to good use though. Anyway, that kid just seemed to break down any barriers in front of him without realizing it."

"And what about Mist? I've heard that the rebels beat back Yagura."

"You heard right. I was called to bank in that favor I owed him about a year in the training trip. By the time I got there, Mei was giving her inauguration speech."

"Does she seem like a person who's… mentally whole?"

"Bit of a complex about her romantic life, but she seems capable enough. Took a shining to Naruto, just like anyone else who met him."

"Kumo?"

"Befriended the leadership. And yes, that includes A, Bee, and Yugito."

"Suna?"

"Gaara's taken the seat of Kazekage, so I don't think we'll have any problems from them."

"Iwa?"

"Eh, Onoki's hard-set on his ways, but he didn't want to vaporize Naruto as soon as he saw him, so that's a plus. Naruto and his granddaughter also seem to have gotten into a rivalry of sorts. Other than that, he was a lot more popular there than I thought he was going to be. That's about much as I could have hoped for."

Tsunade blinked. "So… no one was opposed to a complete ceasefire?"

Jiraiya chuckled a little bit to himself. "Well, it's going to take a lot more than just good feelings to end generations of hate and mistrust, but I think we're well on our way."

"Do you think we could live to see a world that knew peace?"

"Who knows? If there's anything I've learned in my life, it's to never plan farther in your life than your next romantic pursuit. Nothing's known for sure and it's hard to guess."

"Did you tell Naruto who his father was?"

"It was never the right time. Plus, I kinda get the feeling that he's figured it out already."

"Is that so…" Tsunade began tapping her fingers on the edge of her desk listlessly. "I can understand that a lot of what you say lends itself to a certain school of thought and has a certain logic to it. I don't necessarily agree to that school of logic, but, if Naruto's progress is of any indication, it works. Just tell me this, why didn't he ever Hiraishin back here?"

"I told him that the Hiraishin couldn't be used over distances longer than 50 miles, else he'd immediately die of chakra exhaustion."

"And he took that at face value? The chakra expenditure of Hiraishin only increases with the amount of mass transported, not distance."

"I guess he did. If he ever left, he didn't tell me. Anything else?"

"…D-Do you think Naruto's going to be changed from this? He's probably the most powerful thing in the world right now. I can't imagine that's a terribly light burden."

Jiraiya smiled flippantly and began walking out of the office. "Oh come on, this is Naruto we're talking about here."

00000000

The forest of death

Currently, we find our hero dangling upside down suspended from ninja wire from a branch of a tree that went about 50 up in the air. He was covered from head to toe in honey and feathers and wrapped haphazardly around his face was a cone party hat crudely painted to look like a beak.

He knew right from the offset that there was a trap of sorts and he was probably going to be horribly humiliated by 'accidentally' stepping into it. He knew that he could easily circumvent the thing or use a shadow clone instead. But he also knew that Anko probably took a really long time to make it and used hours of her time to plan and set it all up. Plus, if he sidestepped the trap, what was the fun in that?

"Heya Naruto," a mocking, yet somehow sweet and caring voice came from his side.

"Hey Anko," Naruto grunted out, wriggling his way around to see her. "You put a hell of a lot of effort in here, didn't you?"

She smirked. "Hehe, you know, I'm not stupid. Anyone with half a brain and two neurons to rub together could have seen that trap."

"Why make a trap that anyone could see through?"

"Why walk into a trap that anyone could see through?"

"Touché."

"No, this is not touché. You're using that expression wrong. Don't tell me you didn't spend any points on intelligence."

"I'm fairly certain that there's a difference between being intelligent and being blissfully ignorant. I like to think that I walk that line every day."

"If you walk so close to the line, then why did you walk into my trap?"

"It looked like it had a lot of work done into it. Plus, there was a pretty small chance that you were going to make something so obviously a trap lethal."

"Says the man in honey and feathers."

"Oh, I'm a man now am I? I remember like it was just yesterday that you only called me 'kid'."

"Well it was barely only yesterday that you were."

"Touché."

Anko giggled a little bit and hopped up to the branch Naruto was suspended from. "You haven't changed at all," she said to herself as she began to undo the knot on the ninja wire. It turned out that her efforts to cut him down were for nothing as he just sort of… vibrated out of there. Anko wasn't sure what to call it. For a half a second, Naruto's body was shaking at rates that her brain couldn't follow, then he was right in front of her, now devoid of the honey, feathers, and hilarious mouth hat.

Being in front of him for the first time in two and a half years truly made her realize just how much he'd grown. At their full heights, he was taller than her by at least two inches. When she came in for a hug, it was like holding a man, not a boy. Just being near him gave her the uncomfortable feeling that their relationship had done a 180. That she was a novice when compared to him.

As he looked her up and down, his smile only grew in intensity. Strapped around her arms, legs, midsection, really anywhere that one could conceivably place a holster, was a holster all filled with vials that contained a different liquid. Most were a dull green or brown, but some were much more festive with bright pinks and yellows. The inside of her coat contained just about as many throwing knives that the coat would allow. Instead of her mesh bodysuit, she wore a layer of overlapping, tiny linked ringlets, which served much the same purpose as the bodysuit (and showed much the same figure, for that matter), with the exception that it was much more difficult to pierce. Her hair had grown a bit longer, now having the mass to bend under its own weight a little bit with her same haircut.

When she saw his gaze linger on her body for a bit longer than what a preliminary look-over took, she bent forward a little bit and said "Looks like boys will be boys," with her characteristic smirk plastered on her face.

If she was expecting a flustered response, she didn't get it. Instead, he closed the distance between them by a half step and said huskily "Men will be men."

Anko backed up half a step and chuckled a bit nervously, then mentally berated herself for doing so. It was just talking and he had already put her on the defensive. Anko Mitarashi was never on the defensive when it came to making people feel flustered. "S-So, I bet you have all sorts of stories to tell," she said, redirecting the flow of conversation.

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, I've got a few. Nothing too important right now."

Anko nodded back, not entirely understanding his statement, but going along with it. "So… have you met Fu yet?"

Naruto hummed an affirmative and walked backward until he was comfortably supported by the trunk of the tree. "Yeah, I met her."

"Did she…"

"Yup, she confessed to me."

Anko slowly nodded her head up and down. "And?"

"And what?"

"And what's your answer?"

"She took off before I could tell her it."

"But what is it?"

"If I tell you, will you tell her?"

"Do I seem like the type to casually gossip?"

"I haven't seen you around any of your friends, so I don't know."

"Well I'm going to say it now, I don't gossip."

"You could be lying."

"Am I lying?"

"How should I know?"

"Because you should have maxed out that portion of your abilities by now."

"And what if I haven't?"

"Have you?"

"Maybe."

Anko sighed into her palm. Taking a deep breath, she clapped her hands together and shot him a serious look. "What are you trying to do?"

"I'm trying to deflect this conversation."

"And wh-" Anko paused, not having expected that answer. "Are you going to deflect me asking you why you're deflecting?"

"Will you like the answer?"

"How can I have an opinion on something I have no knowledge of?"

"Lots of people have opinions on things that they know nothing about."

"Do I seem like a person who has opinions on things I know nothing about?"

"I haven't seen you around a newspaper, so I don't know."

Anko's serious look got even more serious. Why he was deflecting the question, she didn't know. "Okay. So, you are avoiding answering my question about whether or not you like Fu."

"I like Fu." Naruto said casually.

"Do you love her?"

Naruto mulled on that question for a few seconds. "What do you mean by 'love'?"

Anko's eye twitched out of frustration. "Okay." She said once more, getting back to her original train of thought. "You're avoiding answering my question about whether or not you like Fu. Since you obviously lack any sort of shame or embarrassment, I can only assume that you already know your answer and are just fucking with me with all this deflection shit. Now my question is why you don't want me to know."

Naruto shrugged. "Maybe I _am_ fucking with you, just on a larger scale."

Anko shook her head. "Nah, I can't see you being _that_ much of a prick. You don't want me to know for some reason that I don't know."

"I guess you could say that."

Anko cupped her chin with her fingers. "Okay, so that's the game we're playing. Anko guesses why Naruto doesn't want her to know whether or not he likes Fu."

He hummed an affirmative.

She started pacing up and down the branch she was on. "You know, I _could_ just use one of my perks and force you to tell me."

"You could."

"But I won't. Because it would require me using a riding crop, strips of leather, a wooden horse, and a buttplug along with nonconsensual BDSM."

"Have you used it before?"

"No, I'm not _that_ much in need of information, I'm not _that_ much of a freak. Plus," she twirled on her heel and shot him quite the sarcastic grin "where would be the fun in that?"

"Exactly."

Anko went back to her pacing. "He doesn't want Anko to know because…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"He's afraid that it will make her jealous?"

"Will it?"

"No."

"To both answers?"

"Yes."

"So you _will_ be jealous."

"Yeah, cute, no, wrong answer. He doesn't want Anko to know because…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"He's afraid of revealing the fact that after Fu pined after him so long, he's going to turn her down?"

"I'm going to turn her down?"

"Yeah, cute, no, wrong answer. He's afraid of revealing the fact that…" Anko gasped in surprise "that he's gay for his jonin instructor?"

"Am I gay for my jonin instructor?"

Anko began wringing her fingers through her hair. "Okay, another wrong one. He just doesn't want Anko to know that he doesn't find her body type attractive?"

"Whose?"

"Fu's?"

"Do I not find-"

"Okay, wrong answer. He doesn't want Anko to know because… Fuck, why don't you want me to know?"

"Why _don't _I want you to know?" he said, mostly to himself that time.

Anko growled a little, stalked right up to him and planted her index finger on his chest. "Why… why don't you want me to know? I can't think of anything. You're just being stupid here."

Naruto nodded, taking a few seconds to answer, and when he did, it sounded like she validated something for him. "You're right. I _might_ be stupid right now. I honestly don't know. See, the thing is, even stupidity has a reason going for it nine times out of ten."

Anko traded the frustrated and slightly hurt look on her face with a confused one. Before she was even able to say "Huh?" a sudden switch in space-time had literally switched hers and Naruto's locations. She was pressed against the trunk as Naruto leaned very close to her, propping himself up by a hand on the trunk next to her head.

The Snake master was suddenly aware of a lot things in that moment. That her entire body felt flushed with red hot blood. The slight crack in Naruto's lips that showed just a tiny hint of his tongue in his slightly open mouth. The fact that she felt like her voice box had closed itself off. Naruto's hot breath on her collarbone. His height, which seemed like such a larger part of that moment.

"W-What are you… doing?" Anko asked, pausing to take a nervous gulp.

"Something stupid," Naruto murmured before leaning in and capturing her lips in his.

**AN/ I'm an evil bastard**

**Don't worry. Ima go mega in-depth on Naruto's advancement next chapter. If you've been wondering where Sasuke was: next chapter. Wondering what the Akatsuki's been up to: next chapter. Wondering what Anko's response to Naruto will be: next chapter… maybe.**

**I'm an evil bastard.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	34. a new life

Chapter 34

Naruto didn't get much farther than a kiss, as Anko rather roughly shoved him away. She was breathing heavily and her face was flushed a bright red. Whether that was from anger, embarrassment, or some sad combination of the two was not readily apparent.

The Uzumaki began to immediately prepare his heart for when it was torn to shreds. His face remained steely, no words came to his mind, and he was forcing himself to breathe evenly.

"That was really fucking stupid," Anko ground out, still not able to catch her breath.

Naruto began nodding as she hid her face in her hands and kicked the tree with as much force as she dared. "The first thing you fucking do," she continued "the first thing you do when you see me. You don't talk about your trip. You don't- you don't ask me how life has been. You don't check with me to see if I'm seeing anyone. You just- you just… ARGH!" Anko kicked the tree again, this time forcing a cobweb of cracks to spread from the impact.

"Well, are you seeing anyone?" Naruto asked roughly, unconsciously forcing his disposition to match her own.

Anko walked up to him and roughly shoved her index finger in his chest again. "That's hardly the point."

"Are you seeing anyone?" he asked again.

"No, but-"

"Then what's wrong?!" Naruto asked, voice almost cracking "You are the first person who's tried to teach me in any meaningful way. You are the first person who's understood me on a real level. You are the first person who's looked out for me-"

"That's not what relationships are comprised of!" Anko practically yelled. "Not any meaningful ones at least! It can't be just a puppydog boy chasing after the person who taught him how to get out of traps, for god's sakes."

Naruto brushed aside the hand that was still on his chest with a little bit more force than was warranted. He put one foot forward, then Anko put one foot back. Then he put one foot forward, and she put one foot back. This continued until Anko was pressed to the trunk of the tree once more with Naruto just a few inches away from her. "Do I seem like a puppydog to you?" he whispered harshly

Anko didn't answer.

"Yes, you taught me shit. Yes, you understood me. Yes, you looked out for me. But-" Naruto stopped himself and backed up a few paces. He threw his hands up in the air helplessly and, with the buds of tears in his eyes and a cracked voice, said "But I love you Anko Mitarashi. I love you because you can make me laugh. I love you because you don't care that I'm a Jinchuuriki. I love you because you're just fun to be around. And I even love you when you do dick things to me, like sending me a sex doll that looks like you. And that was really fucking weird." Naruto's head tilted to the ground, he blinked the tears out of his eyes as he fell on his ass in front of her. His gaze refused to meet hers as he said "but most importantly, I love you because I love you. I love you because I just do."

They remained in their positions in a pregnant silence. While at first the birds were quieted by the sudden loud outburst from Naruto and Anko, they began their songs once more. A breeze rustled the leaves above them, sending specks of light glancing all around them. It would have been a good day for Naruto were it not for what had just transpired.

The tears dried up eventually and Naruto laboriously stood up. He took a deep breath and looked Anko in the eyes. His were redshot and hers were close to tears.

"Well?" Naruto asked. He felt annoyed and hapless and just wanted to rip the Band-Aid of rejection off.

Anko chewed the bottom of her lip a little bit. "What does the book say?"

"What?"

"The book. Your book. The game. The perpetrator of this whole foray into complex stupid."

"I don't get what you're asking."

Anko hissed out her breath. "Your little 'Romantic at Heart' perk. The thing that I helped you with first. It tells you how people feel. What's it say?"

"I don't know."

"Don't bullshit. You gambled away our entire relationship without even checking the book first?"

He shrugged, just wanting the whole ordeal to be over. "I didn't like how it felt to know the innermost feelings of the people closest to me by just flipping a page. So I stopped looking. Also, there's a lot of bullshit in asking me what the book says about how _you_ feel. Just… tell me."

"I-I… don't want… to hurt you," Anko said helplessly.

"Just say it!" Naruto shouted with renewed vigor. "Just tell me that you don't love me back! If you don't say those words right now, I… I… I don't think I'll be able to live on with that false hope in my- MHMPH." His sentence was cut off as Anko rushed forward and crashed her lips onto his. As soon as his mind comprehended what was happening, an explosion of emotion bloomed in his chest. Hurt and anger and hope and fear and sadness and happiness and surprise and every single thing that could have been felt by him in that moment was felt by him in that moment.

Naruto wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly to himself. A hand went to the back of her head to deepen the kiss, but she pulled back ever so slightly. Her lips left his as she leaned her head against his shoulder. "I don't want to hurt you," she said again "I… I love you too, but we shouldn't do this."

"Why not?" Naruto asked, an itch of fear starting up in his heart once more.

"Because I'm older than you by a lot."

"10 years isn't that much older."

"11."

"Whatever. I've heard of relationships with way huger spans in age that go by just fine."

"You're 16. It's pedophilia."

"I'm a trained, paid killer. I think I can comprehend and make sound judgements for myself and differentiate what is and isn't being otherwise forced on me."

"I'm your master."

"So what? Master student relations happen all the time."

"But-"

"Shhh" Naruto pulled back and looked down on the top of her head. When she wouldn't look up, he put a hand to her chin and gently lifted it up so they could make eye contact. He paused and just looked at her eyes. To him, they were the most beautiful things in the world. "Nothing else really matters. I love you. You love me... Right now, there's nothing else other than you and me."

Anko looked like she was still going to go against him for a fraction of a second before a smile overtook her face and she captured Naruto's lips in her own.

A few seconds went by, then they vanished out of space-time.

00000000

At an undisclosed location

Orochimaru looked at the two men in front of him with a smirk on his face. He smeared a little bit of blood on his hands and slammed them on the ground. A sealing array spread out and encompassed one of them, the normal looking one, as he screamed in pain and fear. A coffin burst from the cement ground, as if it were rejected by hell itself, and came to a stop in front of the other man. The lid clattered to the ground and out stepped an intimidating looking corpse wearing historic red armor with eyes that had the swirling sharingan in them.

He looked from the man in front of him to Orochimaru, then back to the man in front of him. "Obito," he said "I presume the preparations are complete?"

"Hardly," Orochimaru interrupted with a cruel smirk on his face. "Little Uchiha here ran into a road bump and you're the only one who can clear it."

Madara leveled a questioning stare at the Uchiha who was directly subservient to him.

Obito diverted his singular eye away from Madara's. "Make no mistake, I would not do this under any other circumstance. Many people will have to die now because of this… 'road bump' if we still wish to succeed. That's more people that won't be able to escape from this false reality."

"And this road bump?"

"The Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. His strength has exponentially increased again and again without my noticing. I believe he is now nearly untouchable to all but the strongest, that is, you."

"And when will I be flattening this bump?"

"A few days. I have a new plan that requires the cooperation of all the agents of the Akatsuki."

"A few days? Why not resurrect me when you need me?" Madara asked, clearly annoyed.

Obito looked to Orochimaru, prompting Madara to do so as well.

"Guilty," he said with shrugged arms. "I'm needed elsewhere for a few days and today was the soonest that I could help out."

Madara did a sort of grumble/growl. "Fair enough. I will test the abilities of this organization myself." Having stated that, he trundled along through the door with Obito trailing only a few steps behind.

Orochimaru whistled out a fine tune. "Freaks," he said "freaks everywhere."

00000000

Back in Konoha, after an indeterminate amount of time.

Anko's sweaty, nude from was taking in wide gulps of stale air. Her chest was pressed against Naruto's, who was in much the same state. They both made eye contact and came to the unanimous decision of cool-off before speaking.

Naruto slid out from under Anko and walked over to the curtain covering the window. He swept it aside with a flourish and slid open the aperture to which viewing the world was possible, letting in a cool evening breeze in the process. Leaning out, he closed his eyes and just… breathed in the good fresh air. It filled his lungs with more vigor than he thought possible at that moment.

Anko snapped him out of his breathing time by lightly tapping him in the ribs. She was holding a biggish bottle of water halfway full with fresh ice floating on the top. He eagerly took it and downed the rest of the contents in one solid chug. At the end of it, he caught his breath and slumped back onto the bed. The hot, sticky wetness that was sitting practically all over the bed didn't faze him all too much. Anko did the same, grabbing onto him and rubbing slow circles on his chest.

"That was pretty fast," she whispered.

Naruto laughed a little bit at the suddenness of that statement. "Well, if you want, we can go onto round… what round were we on again?"

Anko grinned despite herself and slapped his chest half-heartedly. "I didn't mean it like that. Pretty fast as in we just met each other for the first time in two and a half years a few hours ago, and now we're post coitus."

"Coitus?"

"We just finished fucking."

"Ah," Naruto nodded. "Well, _you_ might have finished fucking, but as for me…" he that thought trail off as he craned his neck to the side and began kissing her face, making a trail down to her lips where she stopped him.

"I… I mean it Naruto. We should talk about this. About us."

He paused for half a second before nodding and propping his temple up with his hand and looking back into her eyes. "You look pretty with your hair down," he ventured out.

Anko smiled again. "Yeah, well, it ain't too good for work. And that's not the kind of talk I was talking about"

"What kind of talk did you want to talk about?"

"Like…" Anko mulled over the question for a few seconds, tapping her fingers on the bed in an uneven rhythm while doing so. "When… did you first realize… that you loved me?"

Naruto shrugged as much as he could in that position. "Just kind of snuck up on me. What about you?"

Anko blew out cool air, obviously stuck on the question. "I guess… that I thought of you as a really special person to me back when I dragged myself out of a hospital bed to rescue your ass from Danzo and Root. But I didn't love you then, obviously, you were still 13."

"So…"

"I'm getting to that, I'm getting to that… Well, seeing you all grown and, well, at least a little more mature just kind of… drove it in I guess."

"You realized that you were in love with me when I went out on a limb, pun absolutely intended there, and kissed you? That's some deep romantic stuff," Naruto said with too straight a face.

Anko giggled a bit and slapped on the chest again.

"No, seriously, this is something out of a trashy female oriented romance movie. Next you'll be saying, 'I've been in love with you for two and a half years,'" Naruto ground out in a high pitched Minnie mouse type voice. "'Oh, I love how mysterious and dark your past is. Oh, your dangerous and gruff personality is hiding what can only be a heart of gold. Bite me Edward.'"

Anko snorted with laughter and pounced on Naruto, holding his shoulders to the post of the bed with a wide, Anko-like smirk plastered on her face. "Oh, I don't know. You sure this isn't a trashy male oriented romcom? You pine and pine and pine after the older woman for so long," she got real close to his face and tapped her forehead to his. "And then you finally _get _her. You find her and make her love you and take her back and _assert your dominance over her_," Anko huskily whispered that last part in his ear, sending shivers down his spine.

"I don't think you watch many movies," Naruto whispered back. "That usually isn't a part of the plotline of those types of movies. That would be pretty weird if Generic Main Character up and decided to throw away any pretext of romance to caveman her back at his place."

Anko grinned savagely and flopped back to her original position with a good natured "whatever" thrown his way.

"Anything else you wanna talk about?"

"You're moving in, right?"

Naruto nodded.

"Okay, that's good. It's still… what? Eveningish? Do you want to go get something to eat?"

"Watcha thinking?"

Anko's first mental suggestion definitely would have been dango, but she stopped herself just before she started. "How about ramen?" she asked. For some reason she just wasn't able to fully elucidate, she wanted to see Naruto happily guzzling down bowl after bowl of ramen. Maybe bring some semblance of normalcy back to his character.

Naruto lifted a questioning eyebrow. "You sure? Ramen is a kind of a me food. Conversation won't be the most elegant."

Anko nodded with a chipper smile on her face. "Yup. Quick shower, then we'll be off." Having said that, she got up and made her way to the bathroom

"Quick shower?"

"Quick shower," she said sternly, turning her head back for a second "my lady bits need a rest. Don't yours?"

"Once I grow lady bits, I'll be sure to tell you. As for my manly man bits, well, they're a bit sore, but I could still go for a few more rounds before it got too distracting. High endurance stat and all."

"Well, until I become a god as well, you'll have to settle for a measly four rounds of sex."

"A night?"

"Depends."

Naruto groaned arduously. "Oh, come on. I just learned how awesome sex is, and you want to limit me already. The world is cruel. No, scratch that. _You_ are cruel."

"No complaining," she said before hopping off to the bathroom and into the stall shower.

As soon as she turned on the water, the reality of what he just said hit her like a train and caused her to hold onto the shower beam for support. Her eyes widened, her heartbeat quickened, and a cold feeling gripped her stomach.

When Naruto joined her a few seconds later, he was immediately surprised and concerned. "Woah, Anko, are you okay?" When she didn't answer straight away, he backed out and said "hold on, I'll got get granny real quick."

Her hand shot out and grabbed Naruto's wrist before he could Flying Thunder God away. "N-No, it's fine. I'm fine. It's just… you were a virgin?"

A smattering of red covered Naruto's cheeks for a second before he looked away in unexpected meekness. "Y-Yeah, is that a problem?"

Anko's heartrate slowed and she generally calmed down. "N-No, of course it isn't a problem. It's just… nah, forget it. Shower up, we're getting ramen." She turned away back to the water, but Naruto wouldn't have any of it. It was his turn to grab her wrist before she could fully change subjects.

"Seriously Anko, what is it?"

"…You're not going to let this go?"

"I'm the stubborn type."

"Well, so am I."

Naruto didn't say anything. He just stared at her expectantly until she sighed explosively and pulled him into the shower.

As they began to wash each other with soap and shampoo, she said "I… like, you know, I wasn't looked on favorably by just about everyone after I was rescued from Orochimaru. People didn't trust me. They didn't like me. Whatever. Lots of things happened, but in the end, I just desperately wanted to connect with someone. I tried dating whoever didn't look at me with disgust in their eyes, but none of them was a match. I was old, well, older than most when they had done things, when I realized that I hadn't hit any substantial checkpoints in romance. Hadn't kissed, held hands, professed love, had sex, or any of the other things that my former classmates and peers were doing. So, at one point, I decided 'fuck it'. That same night, I went to a bar, talked up an okay looking drunk guy and allowed him to escort me home to his house."

"…And?"

"And, that was it. I woke up the next morning, grabbed my shit, and skedaddled. That was the story of how I lost my virginity, and… and I've regretted it ever since. That's why when I realized that I took your virginity that I… I just didn't want you to have the same regrets that I had, that I have."

Naruto wrapped his arms around her chest and pulled her snugly towards his. "Oh, you stupid little girl. How could I ever regret spending my time with you?"

"Still 11 years older than you."

"Even so, you worry about the stupid things in life. This isn't a one night fling. I love you. Whatever happens in the future will happen in the future. But I will never regret my time with you right now."

A very sincere smile gradually returned to her face. She leaned back and pinched his cheek, making Naruto balk a little and try to squirm out of it.

They finished washing each other in an amiable, loving silence and went out into the night with a fresh pair of clothes on their bodies. As they walked down the streets, Anko held Naruto's harm to her chest and rested her cheek on his shoulder. They received a few looks for their very obvious romantic display, but other than that, were left alone.

That is, until a very hyperactive fox crashed onto Naruto's back and scrambled up his other shoulder. "Heya Naruto, where've you been? People're looking for you!"

Naruto laughed a bit nervously and tilted his head towards Anko. "Been a bit busy I guess. Is it important?"

Kashikoi looked at them back and forth a few times before settling her bouncing nerves and jumping off of him. "Guess not. But wow, you work really fast, don'tcha?"

He laughed good-naturedly. "I just couldn't wait any longer when I saw her. You know how it goes."

"No, I don't. I'm 3. But if you're happy, you're happy. Where're you going?"

"Ramen."

"Blech. I hate that stuff."

"You're a fox, you aren't supposed to like it. It's really bad for your stomach."

Kashikoi grunted noncommittally, then turned her attention to Anko. "I can't believe that I never saw how you had the hots for my cute little partner. All the world's a mystery."

"Well, he is quite the catch."

"Sure, I mean _you_ think that, but he's seriously- heyeheyeahayea wait a minute. You know how to speak fox?"

"You and Naruto aren't the only ones who've grown. I'll have you know that team Naruto has made quite a lot of progress in their own ways."

Kashikoi smirked. "I'll have to hold you to that." She turned her attention back to Naruto. "Seriously though, granny wants to see ya. After ramen, you should go see her."

"Yeah yeah, we will."

"Coolio. My job here is done. If you need me, I'll be by the Inuzukas." With that, the fox darted down the street in the direction of the clan compounds.

"She sounds a lot more feminine than I thought she would," Anko said as they continued on their way to Ichiraku's. "Most of the bitches at the Inuzuka compound sound angry and masculine all the time."

"It takes all kinds, doesn't it?"

Anko hummed an approval.

They finished their walk to Ichiraku's with light conversation about the comings and goings of all of what happened since he left. He didn't learn much. Anko wasn't too occupied with what other people were doing or thinking; she was more concerned with becoming a better ninja or just making fun of people.

When they got there, Ayame and Teuchi greeted him with much fanfare and high pitched girly screaming. Anko, since she knew them from her and Naruto's many excursions to the restaurant in their off-time, nodded along with their surprise and happiness. The two of them sat down, Naruto already answering the barrage of questions that Ayame directed their way. Before they knew it, a big steaming bowl of ramen was in front of Naruto while the father daughter duo were starting on Anko's.

Anko and Naruto shared the big one in front of them, which drew stares and wide eyes from the Ichirakus. "Hold on hold on hold on," Ayame said quickly, not believing her eyes "Naruto doesn't share. Especially not the Naruto special." Ayame's perceptive eyes scanned the two up and down, noticing the happy-go-lucky vibe the two of them had as well as the lack of cognizance to the world outside of themselves. Her eyes widened even more as she gaped at the two. "Don't tell me…"

Naruto scratched the back of his head nervously. "I never could hide anything from you Ayame."

Teuchi looked from the couple to his daughter a few times, clearly confused. "What's happening Ayame?" he whispered.

Ayame pointed to the two ecstatically. "They- They're, they're together dad! Like, _together_ together. Oh my god, I have so many more questions now."

Minutes more went by like that. They alternated answering questions and eating from the bowl. To their pleasant surprise, both of them answered much the way that the other expected them to. Finally, Ayame just slumped against the counter, too emotionally drained to properly hold herself together. "I- I just… you two seem so in love with each other and you only changed your relationship hours ago. That's just so mystifying to me."

"Well," Naruto said, swallowing the noodles in his mouth. "We already knew practically everything about each other. Where we're at right now just feels… right. Right Anko?"

Anko leaned in and planted a ramen juice coated kiss on his lips. "Right," she said with a satisfied smile.

By the time their stomachs had restocked the energy they lost, the sun was beginning to lay upon the horizon. Naruto paid for the food despite the Ichirakus errant protests and the couple began their course to the kage tower.

Since Ichiraku was already close to the tower, the walk was short as they held onto each other in a loving way, still high on romance and oblivious to their surroundings. Before either of them knew it, Naruto was kicking open the door to Tsunade's office without a care in the world. She was sitting in her chair bent over a rather large scroll with small writing, bickering back and forth with Jiraiya. Both of them seemed like they were in bitter moods, making Naruto snap back to the reality that other people might not be as happy as he and Anko were, and that being so obnoxiously happy in front of them might not be the best of ideas.

The two tired sets of eyes drifted over to Naruto and Anko, who had noticed the air in the room beforehand and removed herself from Naruto.

"Where have you been?" Jiraiya asked grumpily.

Naruto looked from side to side. "Anko and I have been catching up."

"Well where was that? We sent Kashikoi out to find you ages ago. If you were going to be so long, you could have sent a clone or something."

"The… time got away from us."

"You've been gone for 5 hours. What was so important to discuss that you… didn't… realize…" Jiraiya trailed off as he looked more closely at their body language. Anko refused to look them in them in the eyes as she clutched one of her arms with the other, while Naruto had sweat on his brow and uneven breathing. He was looking at the two best liars in all of Konoha. Their body language wouldn't have so nervous even if they were trying to convince Godzilla that the true way to world peace was passive protest.

A few things clicked in his brain, which caused him something of a dilemma. On one hand, he had serious news that Naruto was absolutely _not_ going to like and he was probably even going to be blamed for it as well. On the other hand, his student just lost his V-card; and that was worthy of taking him out for drinks and tomfoolery.

Tsunade came to the same conclusion Jiraiya had, which left her mouth hanging dumbly open. She shook her head at the suddenness of this revelation and pulled Jiraiya's head down to hers, so she could secretly whisper in his ear, making Naruto and Anko even more nervous.

"IT'S NOT PEDOPHILIA!" Anko shouted suddenly and a little too loudly. "H-He consented to it and and and you of all people should know that he's capable of making reasoned decisions on his own and and I swear it's not just a onetime thing and he's a ninja and I'm a ninja and I love him and he loves meandweshouldn'tbedischarged," she said in all one breath. Taking in all the air she lost, she stepped to Naruto's side and held his arm to her chest with a look of quiet conviction on her face. This look was taken on by Naruto as well as his nervous demeanor melted away.

Jiraiya and Tsunade shared a look, both cracking a smile despite the information they had to impart on them. "It… it is a bit of a shock," Tsunade started "but Naruto's love life is none of my concern. For the time being, we have more pressing information."

Though both were relieved that there wasn't going to be any consequences for their relationship, the fact that something else trumped that in conversation was very worrying. They both sat down in front of the desk on the sofa, still tense from the air in the room.

Jiraiya sighed and began pacing around behind Tsunade. "Let me start by saying that I receive two types of messages from Tsunade on a regular basis during my travels away from Konoha. The ones that tell me what I need to know in Konoha's political landscape, and the ones where she gripes on and on about all her troubles. I read closely through the first, and skim through the second.

Tsunade, in an annoyed tone, said "and I should have known that he doesn't care about how I feel on the job."

"Tsunade-"

"Shut up, this isn't about that. This is about the fact that while I was writing my more personal letter, an event came to my attention, which I documented. This problem resolved itself within a few hours, and I gave a detailed report of what happened in said personal letter, which he didn't read."

When neither of them continued their story, preferring to just shamefully look down, Naruto asked "Well what is it?" as a pit of worry grew in his stomach.

Tsunade looked up and said "It was found out about a day after you left that Sasuke's ANBU and ROOT watch was found unconscious and dead respectively and Sasuke missing. A search was launched, which included team Naruto, to find him. They tracked Sasuke to an almost abandoned base in the land of rice paddies where the scent stopped. He's been missing ever since. We believe that he defected. Probably to Orochimaru."

A few moments passed as Naruto refused to say anything or look at anyone. Anko was shocked into silence by finding out just how incompetent her leadership was. Anko continued to hold Naruto as comfortably and lightly as she could as he digested the information. She knew that she needed to be a presence by his side, but not try to become a part of the problem or try to distract his reasoning processes.

"T-This is a joke?" Naruto finally asked "Right? T-This can't be real."

"Naruto, we aren't joking." Jiraiya said in his stern voice. "This was a real error in miscommunication on our part and… we're sorry. _I'm_ sorry."

Naruto bit his lip and tapped his foot erratically. His mind couldn't create a response to what was just told to him. Sure, Sasuke was acting weird before he left, and he wasn't able to make contact with the Uchiha, but still...

"We're… going to get him back, right?" Naruto asked after a few moments more of deliberation.

Tsunade and Jiraiya glanced at each other. "Well…" Tsunade started "Kiba's and Hana's tracking skills have increased exponentially a few times since you left. I'm sure that it would be a simple matter to find him…"

Naruto pressed his lips into a thin line. "Why do I sense a 'but' coming?" he asked hopelessly.

"But according to the ANBU who stayed conscious long enough to see the whole interaction, Sasuke left on his own volition to a sociopathic mad genius who would do anything to learn all the world's jutsus. We don't know if he's an enemy to Konoha. We don't know if he's dangerous, even to you. We don't know if Orochimaru has taken over his body. And we don't know if he's even still alive. There've been too many unknown variables to risk sending our two best trackers for what might be a wild goose chase. Honestly, I've been waiting for you and Jiraiya to come back. If what the book says is true, you shouldn't fair badly against him if worst comes to worst. If you really want to find him, which I'm assuming you do, then I'll start assembling the team. Shikamaru's group is set to return tomorrow morning, and with him, Kiba and Hana. I'll also need to assess your ability to work as a team as well as see for myself your combat prowess. That can be taken care of tomorrow as well. For now, just go back home, think, rest, do whatever you need to do to prepare."

Naruto didn't really know what happened next. His mind floated off and things just sort of happened around him. Muted voices occasionally hit his eardrums and he was vaguely aware of the world moving around him. Nothing made sense anymore.

Before he knew it, he was sitting half naked on the end of the bed he and Anko now shared listening to this sharp ding that sounded out every now and then. Eventually, the ding was followed by a series of warbled sounds and began blaring out so quickly that it turned into a sort of prolonged buzz.

Like a lens focusing on a blurry picture to create a beautiful landscape, the sounds lost their meaninglessness to Naruto over the space of a few seconds. The rapid fire dings was the impatient pushing of the doorbell and the warbled sounds were Fu's impatient yells.

Naruto got up from the bed and opened the apartment door to Fu. She looked surprised and irritated and even started out on a diatribe she had no doubt been working on for a few minutes at that point, but all that was washed away when she saw his blank, confused, unaffected gaze.

"Umm… hey" Naruto said unsurely. They stood in front of each other for a few tense seconds before Naruto jolted with realization and backed up from the door. "Want to… come in?" he asked.

The fierce playfulness of Fu's face lost itself as she walked in unsurely. "Is… everything alright?" Fu asked "I-I know I've been kinda pushy with this thing, but I didn't think you'd be so… affected."

Naruto stared at her blankly. "What?" he asked before his brain caught up to him. "Oh, yeah, the confession. Sorry, I kinda forgot about that- that makes me sound like a complete fucking asshole… a lot of things have happened today" he said in monotone.

"Well… do you wanna tell me? I'm here for you," she said, touching his naked shoulder lightly.

In a quick summation of events, Naruto told Fu of everything that happened since he arrived in Konoha that morning, taking special care to euphemize his and Anko's engagements for her sake. At the end of it, his cheeks were wet with tears that he didn't remember shedding and Fu was holding him to her chest, stroking his hair idly with one hand.

"I-I don't even know how to feel." Naruto said helplessly. "I feel happy. I feel sad. I feel numb. I feel ashamed. All that stuff together… I just feel weird."

Fu made shhing sounds as more tears fell out of his eyes. "You've had an eventful day, I'll give you that. But why do you feel ashamed? Nothing there sounds like it was your fault in any way."

Naruto calmed down some and backed away from Fu's ministrations so he could look her in the eye. "Because- because I just rejected you in the form of me crying on your chest while you listened to me talk about how I ended up with Anko."

Fu's eyes went wide with concern. "Y-You're rejecting me again?"

Naruto began stuttering nervously "N-No, well yes? M-Maybe? I just… what? You… know that I'm with Anko, right?"

Fu nodded.

"And… that means I can't be with you."

"Says who?"

Naruto was dumbfounded by this statement. "By… what?"

"Who says that means you can't be with me?"

He wasn't able to answer.

When no sounds came from his mouth, Fu smiled lightly and leaned in close to him, gingerly placing a hand on his cheek. "Listen… I love you. And I have for a pretty long time. I've always known that Anko's felt something for you and I've always known that that wouldn't matter to me."

Naruto's eyes widened, then narrowed. "This is just the-"

"It's not the harem ending perk." Fu said sternly and without any room for maneuverability. "Don't look so surprised. I've taken a snooping around your guidebook more times than I can count. If you decided that you loved, say, Tenten or Hinata, I don't think I would try to butt in on your relationship. I wouldn't be welcome there. But you, me, Anko… we're all just one big fucked up family, aren't we? We support each other. We argue. We love. We hate. We laugh. We cry. We hurt. We help. We do all those things and more because we love each other. Maybe that 'Harem ending' perk has something to do with it, but I really don't care. Because when I'm with you, I'm happy. Do you love me?"

"Well of course I love you, but I don't know if I love you like that! And plus, Anko would never go along with this."

Fu smirked and leaned back a little bit. "Pussyfooting around the question as usual, I see. Let's just say she does go along with it, What then? Do you love me like the way I love you then? Where is she anyway?"

"I… think she said something about groceries. Anyway," Naruto said quickly "I… I think I would love you in that way. But I can't. Not now. Not when I'm with Anko. You understand, right?"

"And if I got permission?"

"Permission?" Naruto asked. He huffed darkly and said "if you get permission, sure. But I don't think-"

"Be right back!" Fu said quickly and excitedly as she burst through the door in a gust of wind and extended insect wings.

Naruto looked at the door for a solid few seconds, trying to comprehend just what the fuck happened. He wiped off the tears from his face and robotically went to the bedroom where his trench coat had been haphazardly thrown to the side. He pulled out one of the scrolls and unsealed a casual outfit, which he quickly put on. It was always comfortable being semi-naked with sweats on, but something just felt more respectable about wearing proper pants and a shirt. Whatever was going to happen in the next five minutes when Fu returned, his subconscious at the very least wanted to be presentable.

Next, he went to the kitchen and got himself a cold glass of water, trying to calm his nerves. He still felt a sort of numbness in the pit of his stomach, but there was also a clenching sort of feeling there too. The only thing that kept him aware of his surroundings and from returning to the miasma of overthinking depression of before was the anticipation and dread that had firmly overridden that aspect of his thought processes.

It didn't take long for Fu to burst open the door excitedly and tackle him onto the sofa without touching the ground, squealing in delight all the way. Naruto didn't say anything while she did so; he didn't know what to say. When the excitement was drained from her body, she gingerly both sides of his face and slowly brought her lips to his.

Before they made contact, he slipped a hand between their faces and grabbed her mouth. He looked her in the eyes, his now completely lucid and serious. "Uhm…" he said, still confused as to what he should say "what?"

A look of confusion glanced over her face before she realized his unwillingness. "Oh," she said through his fingers "Anko says it's fine."

Naruto sat up, getting his body out from Fu's, but not removing his palm from her mouth lest she try something again. "Okay, I'm going to need you to go over exactly what you two said to each other."

Fu grumbled exasperatedly. "I flew up to her like I usually do and said that I'm in love with you and I want to be with you. She said sure and I flew back here."

"…And?"

"And what?"

"And that's it? You aren't forgetting any details? She wasn't messing with you?"

Fu stared at him, eyes unamused. "Anko likes to joke about a lot of things, as do I, but I don't think she'd joke about that. And there wasn't anything else. I said something, then she said something, then I came back hoping for you to be as excited as I am, but you aren't."

Naruto took a deep breath to quell the frustration rising into his throat. "Okay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel bad. Just… look at this from my perspective. During my three and a half years I've been away, I've been wrestling with my conflicting feelings between you and Anko. I've sought out advice, I've contemplated alone, I've set the issue aside, I've agonized over it for _three and a half_ years. Okay? You got that? I come back home having hardened my heart to the fact that I would have to deny your confession in order to seek out a relationship with Anko, who, might I add, may or may have not come into a relationship of her own while I was away. To my happy surprise, she says yes to my feelings and we… well that doesn't matter for now. _Then_, I learn just how inefficient my leadership is when they seem to have forgotten to tell me one of my best friends defected just a few days after I left and has been missing ever since. Now I'm supposed to be getting ready for a mission that's going to happen in a few days to rescue him when _you_ show up. At this point, I'm thinking that I'm going to risk serious physical damage when I say that I'm in a relationship with Anko, then you go out and supposedly get her okay in starting some sort of polygamous relationship. All of that happened in like… six hours. I'm still processing. Let me have that."

Fu nodded reluctantly and backed away from him, if only slightly. "I'm sorry," she said "that I got too excited and impatient with you. You've had a rough day. That being said, you worry too much. When those mutt siblings come back, we're going to go on an adventure and we're going to convince Sasuke to come back to Konoha. After that, we're going to find Akatsuki and wipe them out. After that, we're going to bring peace to the elemental nations. After that, you, me, and Anko are going to get married and we're going to raise wonderful green haired, blue eyed kids."

Naruto chuckled a little bit. "I see you've thought this through."

"Indeed I have."

He laughed a little. Then he laughed a lot. He began to laugh so hard that his sides hurt and Fu looked at him like she might have broken him a bit. Tears of unknown emotion spilt from his still red eyes.

"…Are you okay?" Fu ventured.

Naruto calmed off that insane bout of laughter slowly but surely. "I-I… Hooo… Yeah, I'm okay. I think I feel a lot better now. I think I really needed to hear that. Well, maybe that stuff about the babies could have been omitted, but beggars can't be choosers."

Fu cracked a smile too. "So?" she said expectantly.

"So… what?"

"Your answer. I really need to hear it. I… I love you, you know."

"I… love you too," Naruto said simply. Fu face brightened up light a Christmas tree, until Naruto put up an interjecting hand. "I love you and I have for a while, but I chose Anko in the end. If- and this is a mighty IF- I hear it directly from her, then… why not? Couldn't hurt to at least try this sort of arrangement out."

"It's fine!" Anko loudly said from the kitchen, jolting Naruto's attention away from Fu to the sudden appearance of his lover.

"How long have you been here?" Naruto asked incredulously.

"Few minutes, I guess," she said as she walked out from the kitchen with a plate stacked with snacks. "You know," she said, turning her attention to Fu, "you could use a lesson in sticking around to explain your pending actions. Especially when it concerns both my and my lover's romantic life." The snake mistress sat down on the couch next to the two and flipped the TV on, getting started on her crunchy snacks like she wasn't about to invite polygamy into her life.

"Would it have changed your response?"

Anko shrugged. "Guess not. Anyway," she said, turning her attention to Naruto once more "aren't you God now? How could you have missed me body flickering inside?"

"I'm not focusing on that stuff now," he said defensively. "Right about now, it's taking all my brain power to remain sane. And could you please explain your position on turning this relationship into a threesome?"

Anko, for her part, seemed surprised that he was still going on about that. "What? You heard Fu. We're all one big fucked up family and we have been for a while, even while you've been gone. Nobody else is getting in on this though. I know Fu. I can trust Fu to not hurt you and by extension of you, me."

"See?" Fu asked smugly and knowingly. "Now," she said huskily, "let's do as lovers do. I've been waiting a while for this." The green haired woman crawled on top of Naruto and began kissing all over his face before ending up focusing her attention on his lips. Her hands roamed his body, digging underneath his shirt to rub his abdomen and torso.

Naruto was slightly unwilling at first, even eyeing Anko's relaxed position one last time to make sure this wasn't some sick, planned joke, but seeing as it wasn't, eventually allowed himself to be swept up by Fu's intense emotions. They remained that way for an unknown amount of time until by some sort of unanimous mental agreement, decided to abscond to the bedroom.

The apartment got so noisy that Anko soon had trouble hearing her show, so she turned up the volume to drown out the sounds of sometimes violent, sometimes gentle lovemaking.

00000000

At an unknown location somewhere in the middle of the continent

In the room that he was situated in, he flicked off the blood from his blade distastefully and made rounds across the room, slicing the throats of all his opponents just to make sure that they remained dead. Scarlet bloodwater coated the walls, rose up to an inch on the ground and was even splattered on the ceiling in some places.

And the room had a high ceiling.

Scorch marks lined the walls and dug into the bodies of all the deceased around him, still smoking their fresh, pungent odor. His opponents, if they could even have been called such, were failed experiments of his master. Although their attack power was small, they were all wily, hard to hit, quick to move, and smart as all hell. They didn't feel pain in the conventional sense and wouldn't cease their assault even by loss of life or limb. He found that the only way to truly kill them was to cut off their oxygen supply or to completely drain them of their blood. Any normal man or ninja would have been torn to shred by those depraved beings.

He didn't have a single scratch on him. For that matter, there wasn't a single speck of blood staining his clothing.

Once all the throats were open and the twitching limbs stopped, he reached inside his cloak and pulled a small book. Opening it up showed garbled pages of ones, zeroes, nonsensical images, and overlapping text that undulated and flickered in and out of existence in a most distasteful and headache inducing way.

He'd grown used to it over the years.

Like a well-oiled machine, he flipped the pages to where he always flipped them, the two pages of the book that weren't completely impossible to read.

The base stat and attribute section of his guidebook.

He grinned at seeing that he'd leveled up and spent the points allotted to him accordingly. The all too familiar sensation of reality bending to the book's ruling washed over his body, making it stronger, faster, smarter, if only by the slightest of margins. The enemies had given him much more experience than he had anticipated. He'd be sure to tell his master of their worth once he came back from his mission.

Already, some of his master's servants started filtering in wearing heavy duty cleaning wear with body bags and hoses. A small metallic click was heard in the room and holes slid open on the ground for the easy drainage of blood and loose gore.

He briskly walked out of the room and into the next one he had planned for that day. Inside were all a manner of brutes with muscles so oversized and bodies so deformed that they barely passed for having a humanesque form. Their pale white faces and completely black eyes revealed them to be at least somewhat related to the deformed things he had fought in the previous chamber.

Ever since Orochimaru had infused him with the cloned body of his useless teammate, Sasuke had grown stronger than what could have ever been physically possible by human standards. As soon as he woke from that ill-formed surgery, a glitchy guidebook had always been with him. But that was enough. Enough to kill his brother. Enough to gain revenge on the person who ruined his life.

The Uchiha grinned and unsheathed his sword even as the muscled monstrosities roared with apparent stupidity and reckless abandon.

**AN/ Heya, gent here.**

**Sorry for the delay. I cut my hand a little bit and it made typing a real bitch. It's just about all healed up now, though, so there's that.**

**Oh yeah, Naruto's stats are going to be **_**next**_** chapter. This chapter is long as it is (longer than planned), so I didn't want to put in the scene where you all see just how much he's grown.**

**Anyway, tell me what think. Quips, quibbles, and conundrums in the review. If you have a question about the story, PM me. Don't feel shy about it, it's okay. If there's a question in the review box, you won't get an answer**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	35. a missing fragment

Chapter 35

_All was peaceful in a serene glade. It was late spring, meaning that the flowering plants and trees were at the point where they began losing petals and animals of all kinds began to change their camouflage. It was a time where a breeze that rustled the leaves of the foliage, bringing differing scents to prey and predator alike could relieve someone of all their problems and relax them on its scent alone. Every so often there was a rustle in the bushes, a flight of sparrows darting through the branches of the trees, or a dappling of light in the water of a small pond as a fish swam close to the surface before realizing its mistake and diving back under._

_All was peaceful in a serene glade. Until two assholes had to ruin it._

_Jiraiya and a 15 year old Naruto burst apart from each other. Until then, they had been silently sitting cross-legged across from each other each with one of their hands on a thick book. They had held that pose for thirty minutes before they blasted apart from each other._

_Jiraiya, experienced in having his physical state interrupted just before it got to the good part, summersaulted and landed on his feet in a crouch. He ran to his student, who was gasping for air in front of a tree that had a Naruto shaped indent on it. Naruto was already clumsily sealing out the chakra needed for a shadow clone, but his concentration kept on getting interrupted by his lack of oxygen and extreme torso pain._

_Once by his side, the Toad Sannin crouched down and started up a medical technique in his hands. He wasn't too proficient with it, but he at least knew how to dull the pain, which is just what he did._

_Having been relieved of the pain, Naruto mustered up the concentration to create a shadow clone. Thanks to a perk called _Total Recollection, _a perk he unlocked by completely mastering the shadow clone technique, his clones no longer spawned in the state that he was in when he made them, meaning that they could perform advanced surgery straight out of existence._

_The shadow clone took over for Jiraiya and started healing up the main body's chest, which, internally, was in tatters._

_Once he was sure Naruto wasn't going to die, Jiraiya immediately began berating him. "You goddamn stupid little shit! I _told_ you that you weren't ready to face him yet, I _told _you! One tiny little slip up was all that you needed and you would have been dead. DEAD. D.E.A.D. You hear me?"_

_Naruto drunkenly looked up, broken ribs getting set back into place and mended while he did so. "I won, didn't I?"_

_This statement only seemed to infuriate Jiraiya more. "You were down three limbs and got a lucky shot at his throat, which may or may not have even killed him before you died of blood loss. You're a stupid kid, I think we both know that, but the sheer lack of… the sheer lack of…"_

"_Respect? Knowledge? Veneration?"_

"_Caution. You may have increased your intelligence, but you're still a blockhead when it comes to initiating conflict. You were caught completely unawares and almost paid the ultimate price. Do you know what Tsunade would do to me if she found out that you died because you mouthed off a demon?"_

"_He isn't a demon."_

_Jiraiya huffed in exaggerated amusement. "Yeah right. If he isn't a demon, then I'm a billionaire playboy philanthropist with his own nation made up of a harem of beauties."_

_Naruto shakily got up as the clone dispelled itself. His shakiness was mostly due to the shock and adrenaline still in his nerves rather than any pain. "Still though," Naruto said, smiling through Jiraiya's beratement "now I have enough merit points to buy the _Lightning Rod. _If I had that when I started the fight, it would have been over in a second."_

_Jiraiya's hardware was unique in the sense that it had entire rosters of dangerous and unknown shinobi ripe for the picking of a fair fight in the folds of its pages. One could dictate the options for the fight, which affected difficulty and experience gain. They all immediately lost entirely half of all their gain after the first fight, which branched out to the various experience multipliers and dividers as well. Naruto had just fought what the book called _Demonic Zabuza Momochi, _a version of Zabuza that was demon in appearance as well as temperament and ability._

"_But you didn't," Jiraiya ground out, unamused by Naruto's lack of concern._

_Naruto shrugged. "Whatever, it worked out in the end, didn't it?" He pulled out his book and began to walk past Jiraiya, but was held in place when the Sannin gripped him by shoulder and didn't let go._

"_Naruto," Jiraiya said in a decidedly softer tone of voice "what's wrong? I took you on this trip so you would be free from distractions. Distractions which have as much lethality as all of Akatsuki combined."_

"_It's nothing," he said, trying to shrug off the hand on his shoulder to no avail._

"_It is."_

"_It isn't. And how would you know anyways? I'm the best liar this side of the elemental nations."_

"_Sure, I don't know when you're not lying, but I'm also not as mentally impaired as you think I am. Now talk, or no ramen for a month."_

_Naruto pursed lips and stagnated against Jiraiya's whims for a few seconds before relenting with a giant release of air from his lungs. It was less the ramen and more the knowledge that Sannin was even more a mule than he was. "I've decided." Naruto stated simply._

_Jiraiya's eyebrows rose in intrigue. "Oh? And who is it?"_

_Naruto refused to meet his mentor's eyes, as he knew what his reaction was going to be. "…Anko."_

_Jiraiya tossed his head back and groaned loudly. Naruto slipped under his hand and waited for the act to stop._

"_Naruto, I thought I told you about this."_

"_Well I can't help it. I love Fu too, but I know I'll regret it more if I choose her over Anko."_

_Jiraiya sighed and placed his chin in one of his hands, thinking._

"_What do you think my chances are?"_

"…"

"_What do you-"_

"_I heard you the first time. Okay, listen, she's known you since you were thirteen, meaning that she will always have a recollection of you being a child. However, if you show her that you've changed in maturity and have gotten stronger, then the chances of success go up."_

"_See, I need to get stronger."_

"_Okay, uhmmm… no. If it's for a girl, you're getting stronger for the wrong reasons. It is important to get stronger, but whether she's stronger than you or you're stronger than her is irrelevant at the end of the day. What really matters is that she can see that you've grown. Plus, this is all moot if you die in training."_

"_I… guess that makes sense. Anything else that would raise the chances?"_

"_When we get back, you have to make your move as soon as possible. Exchange pleasantries, get to know what's happened since you left, maybe a story or two, but then you just _have to fucking go for it_. Don't go too far, but make it very very clear that you think of her as a romantic prospect, and not as an older sister figure. Once she's see how much you've changed, it's important that she doesn't link the changed you to the child you. If that happens, then the most she'll want to be is friends."_

"_Okay, grand gesture… how do I do that?"_

"_I don't know. It can't be juvenile, like groping her right out the bat. Nor can it be implied in metaphor because you're too much of a whimp to go right out and say it. You have to be alone. Lots of eye contact, pauses in conversation to make it look like you're thinking and turning situations around in your head, nature setting preferably. I'll leave the grand gesture up to you, but I think you'll know what to do when the time comes."_

_Naruto nodded. There were things he didn't trust the pervert with, but he knew when Jiraiya was and wasn't being serious. The advice he was giving sounded right anyway, so who was he to complain? "And if I do all of that correctly, what are my chances then?"_

_Jiraiya mulled it over for a few seconds, then looked Naruto straight in the eye and said "fifty fifty."_

_Naruto looked surprised by that information. "Fifty fifty? That high?"_

"_Well it probably would have been a sure thing if you went after that Fu girl, so fifty fifty doesn't sound as attractive as you think it does. Anyway, I've seen the way you two interact. You're close. Closer than many people will ever get with another person. Wait, hold on. I need to give you something," Jiraiya said as he dug around in his jacket. He pulled out an orange book and tossed it to Naruto._

_The Uzumaki looked at Jiraiya with lidded, unamused eyes. "Porn? Porn that _you_ wrote? This is pretty fucking gross and creepy."_

_The Sannin shrugged. "I'm not sure if the curriculum in the academy went over sex ed, but if it didn't, then I'm telling you now. Sex is a big part of your life. It's used in ads to get your attention. It's used in visual products like TV and video games to make them sell higher. And it's used in life to do all a manner of things. From just scratching an itch to showing someone how much you love them to just trying to comfort someone you like. Whatever it is, you at least need to know the general yes's and no's of intercourse and how it pertains to relationships._

"_I'm not saying that you have to practice on the girls in the villages that we're traveling to, or even that you have to partake in it at all. If you're not comfortable doing something, make sure you vocalize it in a serious manner and know that you don't have to do anything you don't feel ready for. That being said, Anko's a lot older than you. She's probably had lovers at some point in her life and also probably knows how to have sex at least somewhat effectively. If all this plays out for the best, which it probably won't, she's going to want a good lover. I don't know how patient a teacher she is, so you at least have to know the basics so you don't look like a doddling fool in bed."_

"_And porn is good for that?"_

"_This porn is. But," and here, Jiraiya got an airy, extremely serious tone of voice "ultimately, in the end, absolutely none of this matters if your feelings for her aren't genuine. Are you sure you love her? And think long and hard about this. Everything that she is, not just the good, but also the bad. Take it all together and don't look at her from a standpoint of what she looks like on the outside. Think of what she says when no one's around. Think of what you two do together when you aren't training. Think of exactly what kind of person she is, not what you want her to be. Think of that, and tell me. Do you love her?"_

"…Yes, I do love her."

"Love who?"

Naruto woke out of the state of semi-consciousness with a start. In front of him, Fu was getting changed back into her casual attire, which was also her work and training attire, hiding her nakedness from view. Beside him, Anko groaned out sleepily and shuffled back into a comfortable place. Naruto sat up and blinked the sleepiness out his eyes, nearly yelping in surprise and pain as Fu drew open the curtains on the room's window and bathing the bed with sunlight.

"You always were a morning person," Naruto murmured, envying the fact that Anko had a pillow covering her eyes and thus was saved from the light.

Fu smiled and threw a crumpled T-shirt his way. "Yeah, I am. And you better get there too or there are going to be more abrupt mornings."

Naruto put the T-shirt on and fell back to bed, snuggling up to Anko and drawing the blanket over his eyes. "I'll get there. Maybe. But I need my sleep. Didn't get much last night."

"Neither did I, but you don't see me complaining."

"But you're a morning person."

"Well I-" Fu looked up and away from Naruto with wide eyes in sudden realization. "Oh, shit." She did a few handseals that Naruto didn't recognize and flitted them over her abdomen. Her hands clenched suddenly and she did another array of seals, flitting them over her abdomen in much the same way as the first.

"What's wrong?" Naruto asked worriedly, prepping for any kind of disaster with adrenaline starting to pump through his veins.

"It's nothing," Fu said, shaking her head. "Just uhh, the uhh, you know."

"No, I don't know. What's up?" Naruto asked, still very much worried.

"The anti-pregnancy jutsu. The one that you learned in the academy. There's the night before and the morning after variants. I haven't used them since that class, so I got them mixed up."

Naruto shook his head. "I don't think the boys learned that jutsu."

"There isn't an anti-pregnancy for guys, but still, shouldn't you at least know of them?"

"I, uhh… I didn't pay much attention in class."

Fu nodded. "That explains it. Neither did I." the verdette began walking out the doorway and into the kitchen to get some eggs going when she heard Naruto aggressively shaking Anko awake, which made her stop in her tracks.

"C'mon Anko. Wake up! You have to do the anti-whatsit jutsu. Just-" he stopped trying to wake her when Fu landed a hand on his shoulder. Her facial expression was both concerned and tense.

Anko unconsciously slugged Naruto away and went back to dreamland.

"What?" Naruto asked. "I sense these things. She hasn't done a jutsu since we landed at her apartment yesterday. There's no way she could have done that anti-pregnancy jutsu then. And I'm guessing there's a limit to how long in the morning after that the jutsu will stop working. She has to wake up to do that thingy."

Fu gulped hard. "She'll be fine."

"What?" he asked incredulously.

"She'll be fine," Fu said with an edge in her words. "It's umm… I guess you could call it a safe day. She'll be fine, just let her sleep."

Naruto didn't look too convinced, but decided not to question. The adrenaline from the scare woke him up fully, so he decided to get up and follow Fu to the kitchen.

The tenseness of Fu's voice was lost once they started cooking. There, they talked about what had changed and what had remained the same since he left. To his pleasant surprise, Fu's high energy and seemingly complete lack of forethought made for some very interesting stories. They were so embroiled in each other's stories that they didn't leave the kitchen for hours. Even when all that was in front of them were crusting over plates of food as they laughed at each other's misadventures, the only thing that stopped them was Anko finally waking up and zombie walking into the kitchen.

She grunted out a "good morning" and got to work on the leftover food still in the pan.

Naruto was about to inquire as to why she didn't need to use the anti-pregnancy jutsu, but the doorbell rang just as his mouth opened. The Uzumaki, thanks to his advanced sensory ability, perked up upon realizing just who was outside the door.

Naruto bounced up from the kitchen and hurriedly opened the door to a good friend of his.

00000000

"I don't know, just doesn't feel right." A thin teenager said as he casually dropped a grayish white blob on the ground, watching it roll away and disappear down the advanced draining system.

"Just do your job." An old hunchbacked man said as he trundled along next to his companion.

"Yeah yeah yeah, I know. Orders and all that. Still though, this feels like kicking a dog when it's down," the teen said as he looked up to and around the towering complexes that were made for low to middle class people. There were a lot of them, as most of the people in the village they were in were low to middle class. It didn't have much to do with any wealth disparity, more to the fact that their nation was still rather poor despite their recent upswing.

"It could prove to be a problem in the future. We don't like problems, do we?" the hunchbacked man said as he warily eyed any bystander that approached. In most ninja villages, this would have been seen as suspicious, in Mist, it was the norm.

Deidara shrugged. "Ain't too partial, yeah," he said as he dropped another white blob on the ground, this one rolling down a drain as well. "But life ain't fun without a bit a variables."

"Variables get you killed."

"Variables get you lived. Er, variables make you live. I mean, variables are what's- you know what? Never mind. You get what I mean."

"I'm not going to debate the higher points of the human condition with an insane autoerotic aficionado."

"Autoerotic aficionado huh? Gotta write that one down. It's new."

"You're insufferable."

"Don't I know it."

00000000

A man with gray, slicked back hair gazed across at the mountain peaks of Kumogakura. Most of the time, the majority of the village was obscured with low-hanging, wispy clouds, hence its name; however, on clear days, like it was then, the entirety of the village could be viewed from any number of mountain peaks it was situated against. However the ninja in charge managed to get the building materials up the mountain in such sufficient amounts so as to create a village with arguably the largest military power in the nations was up to anyone's guess. However they did manage it, it was impressive.

Or it would have been if either of the two men on top of the aforementioned peak gave a shit about anything more than money and slow, painful death.

Hidan may have a sociopathic murderer, but he wasn't stupid. When not on a euphoric religious experience that may or may not include copious amounts of blood and gore or acting like a cat in blood heat, he often had introspective moments about his missions or the nature of what he was or wasn't about to do.

"I don't like this," Hidan said to the misshapen snow pile next to him. His voice hadn't lost its manic tone despite the seriousness of its content.

The pile of snow made no comment.

"I mean, the only thing that's actually effective in putting a hole through your chest are lightning attacks. Where are we? Land of fucking Lightning. I get that we were late to the meeting and all, but still, they sounded like they wanted this plan to get pulled off."

The pile of snow remained silent.

"I guess it could be an elaborate ploy to get us killed, but Leader-sama could do that as soon as he wanted to. Oh! I get it. They want us to self-destruct in Kumo. For what reason, though, I don't know."

The pile of snow had no remarks to give.

"Well, we aren't going to figure it out by arguing for hours on the top of a mountain. How do you figure we go about this?"

"What are you going on about?" a voice said from behind him, dropping the heavy packs that rested on his shoulders and in his hands on the snow.

Hidan looked from the pile of snow to Kakuzu and back a few times before smiling cruelly and saying "Just wondering the same thing."

00000000

Two very different beings sat on the top of a sand dune and gazed across the vast desert at the village of Sunagakure. One was malformed and a sickly white on one side and black as pitch on the other. The other had her blue hair done up in a bun on the top of her head and had various piercings on her face.

They sat in silence and had been sitting in silence for quite a while at that point. Neither had much to say to the other, nor did they care much about the other's opinion on any matter. The only reason they were being paired together was because they were the odd team out.

Eventually one of the black's counterparts emerged creepily from the sand. "The white Zetsus are in position," he whispered before sinking back underground.

"How long can white Zetsus survive without food, water, or air?" Konan asked.

"**You don't have to worry about anything," **the black Zetsu said **"They can go for months on nothing."**

Konan nodded. "Do you know when the signal's going to go out?"

"**I believe we were both present for the same briefing."**

"And I believe that you and Madara are much closer than what you're willing to share with us."

The black Zetsu paused for a few beats. **"It'll depend on how strong the Kyuubi is. Few days. Maybe."**

"And then?"

The black Zetsu took a disconcertingly long time to swivel his head to face hers. **"That's none of your concern. That's none of anyone's concern."**

Konan scrunched her face up in frustration and slowly began to disintegrate into small pieces of paper. "Alert me when we launch."

One very strange and very lonely being sat on the top of a sand dune and gazed across the vast desert at the village of Sunagakure.

00000000

Iwagakure was situated at the bottom of a range of mountains. This fact alone provided the brunt of all that anyone would need to know about its people. Defensive, hard, and difficult to move either physically or mentally.

Kisame smirked at the sight of the tallest building, the kage residence, which had the nose of the fourth hokage's stone nose crudely melted on the top of it, just above the kanji for stone. "Didn't think these people had a sense of humor," he said jokingly.

"They don't," replied Itachi "they're just vindictive with a sense of cruel irony."

"You're using irony incorrectly again."

"We are not having this conversation! For the last time, there is more than one type of irony in the world," Itachi said, uncharacteristically raising his voice at his partner.

Kisame shrugged. "Whatever, doesn't matter anyway. So how're we going to do this?"

"Mountains on either side. No easy way for anything to flow in or flow out. Most homes aren't liquid proofed. It's starting to look rather obvious."

Kisame snapped his fingers in realization. "We make one of these mountains erupt lava and redirect it down there. Those suckers won't see it coming."

Itachi stared at the shark man for a solid few seconds. "I'm not sure if you're trying to make me angry, or you're just stupid."

"Probably a mixture of the two."

00000000

In the privacy of a rather well sheltered grove of trees, there meditated two individuals. One was a malnourished, crippled redhead hooked up to a machine that helped keep him upright. His eyes were closed, but if they were to be opened, one would see the purple ringed eyes of the rinnegan. The other man was considered to be one of the strongest men of his time. He was also screwing shut his rinnegan eyes and had a seemingly permanent frown marring his already cracked face.

Madara opened his eyes suddenly and stared at the person in front of him. The decrepit person across from him wasn't exactly the kind of young boy that he remembered implanting his original eyes into. Of course the Uzumaki was a child in a war torn country when Madara implanted they eyes, but it was difficult to believe that he had transformed into such a state as this.

From what he could tell was happening, he was using Obito Uchiha into making the moon-eye plan a reality. Obito wanted it so he could enter 'the true reality' that he wanted to be a part of; it was foolish to want such a thing, but understandable in his context. To his needs, Obito manipulated Nagato into doing what he wanted because Nagato had come unto the realization that the only way people would be able to understand each other was if they felt the same fear and pain as the other; still foolish in his opinion, but less delusionary than Obito's plan. To his needs, Nagato perverted his original group into an organization of mercenaries to get money to fund his plan.

Circles in circles in circles.

A puppet holding onto puppet strings holding onto puppet strings.

If one were to understand the whole situation at hand, that person would find it ludicrous that such a farce had managed to continue for so long without ego destroying the entire thing.

Nagato opened his eyes and stared at Madara. "If you have something to say," Nagato said contemptuously "then just say it."

"I don't," Madara curtly replied.

The impatient tapping of Nagato's finger inside the contraption holding himself together was made known. "I understand that my form isn't very palatable to the eyes, nor is it readily understandable. However, if you have nothing to say to me, then even _I _will find it rude and disrespectful to stare at me for no reason."

Madara narrowed his eyes. "You believe yourself to be deserving of respect." It was a statement. Not a question.

Nagato's face scrunched up slightly as if he had smelled rotting fruit without having first known such a smell was in his immediate vicinity. "I've heard a lot about you from Tobi-"

Madara scoffed at the mention of Obito's alias.

"-but," Nagato continued undeterred "no matter how strong you are, _I _am the leader of Akatsuki. _I_ will be the one who will bring peace to the world. _I _will become god. And _I_ _will_ be shown respect. If you have nothing to ask, avert your eyes."

Oh, how Madara wanted to ruin his fun. To lay out the entire situation before the arrogant little cripple and watch his world crumble to nothingness. To see the unbelieving eyes of the Rinnegan looking at him with confusion and fear and hatred and submissiveness.

Oh, how he wanted that.

A swirl of distorted air made itself known as a man wearing an orange swirl mask came into existence right in the middle of them, immediately ending any spat that they had going on. Clutched in his right hand was the throat of a towering man covered in red armor. The armor was looking worse for wear as it was covered in long, ugly scratches, burns, and even had whole pieces of it missing in some places. His fingers twitched a few times and a long, pained groan was started before Obito slammed him into the ground, back of the head first, completely knocking him out unconscious.

"Sorry," Obito said "that it took longer to track than expected. He was unexpectedly stealthy."

"Nothing we can do about it," Madara said flatly. "The other three missing ones, though. They should be easier to find, no?"

He nodded. "I've confirmed their locations. Having said that, capturing them might take slightly longer. Out of all the Jinchuuriki, they're the slipperiest and have the most unfortunate powers out of all of the others."

"But it can be done?"

"It will be done."

Madara nodded. "Then be on your way."

Nagato looked distastefully at the space-time rift. He wasn't exactly partial to having someone else order his subordinate around, but so long as his life-long ideal of peace came to fruition, he didn't really care.

00000000

Naruto and Kiba were walking around town and shooting the breeze as they casually went to administration. The dog boy's clothing had been changed to a bluish tracksuit with flat pieces of thin metal strapped to his arms and legs. Attached to those pieces were seals that called forth sharp instruments, beast-like armor, vials of healing liquid, as well as many other miscellaneous compounds that made it easier for him to make contact with and speak to wild animals.

"Waitwaitwait," Kiba said, obviously not believe Naruto's words "you're with _two_ extremely hot chicks and they're completely okay with that?"

Naruto shrugged. "I don't get it either."

" .shit. Why are you always the lucky one with shit like this?"

Naruto shrugged again. "Like I said."

Kiba groused a bit more before mumbling curses under his breath, much to Naruto's amusement.

"What about you man?" Naruto asked, poking him in the chest with his elbow "Being the heir to the clan must get you at least a little attention, right?"

Kiba blushed a little bit and turned his nose upwards. "N-Not as much as you might think."

Naruto chuckled a little bit and slapped him on the back a few times. "Well, we all go at our own pace."

The Inuzuka practically growled at him. "I wonder why I feel like someone's acting like a condescending prick to me. Oh, I know," Kiba glowered at Naruto, letting the sentence hang.

"Didn't mean to," Naruto said with exaggerated forlornness, even going so far as to shove his hands in his pockets and absentmindedly kick at the dirt in front of him.

Kiba continued on, completely unaffected by Naruto's acting. "We can't all be like you, now can we?"

Naruto hurried up to his side. "Guess not. On a slightly more serious note, how's everyone progressed so far? I've a slight picture from Fu and Anko, but they weren't really in tune with the goings on of the rest of Team Naruto."

At the mention of progress, Kiba proudly puffed his chest out and said "I'll have you know that I'm level 98. That's high ANBU low kage level."

"Is it?" Naruto asked in seriousness. He seemed to remember something slightly different. Perhaps the game had been tweaked or maybe everyone associated with the game got stronger together, making level values slightly meaningless.

"Yeah, it is," Kiba said, getting slightly impatient. He dug around his ninja pouch for a few seconds and tossed Naruto his guidebook. "Just look for yourself."

_Kiba Inuzuka: EXP: 72897/99000._

_Level: 98_

_Chakra: 120_

_Chakra Control: 70_

_Wisdom: 40_

_Intelligence: 90_

_Charisma: 15_

_Flexibility: 97_

_Speed: 103_

_Strength: 101_

_Endurance: 50_

_Naruto suppressed laughter. "Your charisma is worth shit."_

_Kiba's cheeks flushed in anger. "I wasn't asking for the peanut gallery," he ground out "just look at the other stats. They're great. Bet you can't beat them."_

_Naruto raised an eyebrow and tossed over his own guidebook. Kiba's smirk of superiority vanished faster than Naruto using his Hiraishin technique._

_"You gotta be fucking kidding me," Kiba moaned. He tossed Naruto back the guidebook without looking at him and accepted his own back without a word._

_"Hey man, that training leave was pretty lucrative for me. Also really dangerous, but still."_

_Whatever Kiba was about to say was interrupted by loud barking from an ecstatic Akamaru bounding towards them and tackling Kiba to the ground, covering him from head to toe with licks. Kiba brightened up almost immediately and started tussling with his partner._

_Kashikoi padded up as well and hopped up to Naruto's shoulders, draping herself across his neck and licking his cheek. "Looks like I check out for anything contagious or wormy. That's more than I can say for you half the time."_

"Hey…"

"Ah, Naruto!" a voice shouted out.

The Uzumaki turned to see three very large dogs bounding great distances to him. The first one jumped at him and was caught in his arms, the second one impacted the first and the third hit the struggling mass of human and dog bodies, bringing it down for the count. Naruto was subjected to quite the licking from all the dogs until their owner managed to pry them off.

"Hey Hana," Naruto said while getting up and dusting his cool trench coat off.

"Hey Naruto," she said, placing a hand on her hip. Her clothes had changed into a bluish green lab coat that was lined with furs from various different animals, most of them fluffy. Dangling inside her coat was a pair of claws that were built to fit over her hands. "You look different."

Naruto grinned like an idiot and said "for the better?"

Hana smirked and nodded.

"Hey sis!" Kiba said "guess what? He's with both Anko and Fu. _Both_ of them. At the same time! And they're both okay with it."

Hana didn't seem too surprised that information. "I always knew there was a screw loose with those two."

"Hey," Naruto said defensively.

"You going to refute my statement?"

Naruto raised his finger to gesticulate and opened his mouth, but no words came. "Ahh… ahh… I… guess you've got a point there."

Kiba sniggered and Hana openly laughed while Naruto lamely resumed kicking the dirt as he waited for them to finish their fun.

"Oh, come on," Hana said once she noticed his demeanor. "It's not like I'm against that. What works for you, works for you. Anyway, what're you two doing?"

"What you should be doing too," Kiba said. "We're checking in at administration."

Hana stiffened. "Oh shit, how long have I been at the compound?"

"Long enough for me and Naruto to catch up."

"So then why are you two walking to administration? Wouldn't it be faster to, you know, run?"

"Shika went ahead of us to deliver his report. That gives us a few hours."

00000000

"After we bought out the outstanding debt from the various citizens and companies from Kiri en masse, the debt's value was raised artificially. That raise in value directly correlated to a raise in our stocks and thusly we were able to pay out our clientele that had invested in us along with allowing us to invest in infrastructure in some of the smaller countries. We're playing for the long game in this one. It would be easy to open up stores full of swords and knives, then start a proxy war and reap the rewards, but that would be messy and ethically wrong. So what we decided to do was to bring water, electricity, communication, and even a little bit of education to the people of these smaller nations. There's no real immediate benefit other than helping disparate people, but when these nations grow, there will be room for increasing manufacturing that needs highly educated, and more importantly, healthy people. I don't think I need to tell you that lowering poverty and increasing general knowledge is a good thing, but this will have the potential to make Uzumaki Inc. one of the most well-known and wealthiest companies in all of the elemental nations."

00000000

"I see. He does love those monologues about how much money he's making, doesn't he?"

Kiba nodded gravely. He'd had more monologues than he'd like to count pointed his way.

"Sorry, what's happening?" Naruto asked.

"You created a monster is what's happening."

"So he… talks about money a lot? How monstrous."

Kiba shook his head. "You don't get it. You just don't get it."

Before Naruto could enquire more about what Kiba meant, the ground and air all around the group exploded into pink and purple smoke. There was no way for them to see or smell due to its strength and thickness. Everything echoed and distorted and throughout it all, a very evil laughter resounded all around them. It said nothing, yet the very sound of the laughter could make babies cry, could give grown men and women nightmares for days and nights to come, to elicit the very essence of doom and destruction to the forefront of the mind and s-

"Hey Ino," Naruto choked out through the smog.

The laughter cut instantly and was followed by a string of curses. The pink and purple smoke lifted up mysteriously quickly and filled up two canisters that were attached to the hip of Konoha's number one resident mad scientist.

"Hey Naruto," Ino said disappointedly as she hopped down from the vantage point of the nearest rooftop. "You had to ruin my fun, didn't you? I had a whole speech planned out. You were going to shit your pants out of fear."

Naruto shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry. You can do the speech if you want."

Ino clicked her tongue distastefully. "Wouldn't be the same. Not without the pants shitting. Or the anonymity."

Naruto looked her up and down a few times. "You look… different," he said slowly. And it was true. Out of all his friends he had met so far, she had changed the most. She was wearing what was once a white lab coat that had been stained with blotches of chemicals, paints, and what he could only assume was vast quantities of blood. Her hair was done up in a ponytail that was frizzed up and away from her body, as if she had been struck by lightning, and her hair band was doing its hardest to not get torn asunder from the force. Protective goggles with a few different sliding lenses attached to its top was securely around her face, giving her a wild and unpredictable look. What was visible under her lab coat was a purple mesh armor that fell to her knees in a skirt. From the bulges all over her body, he could only assume that she had pockets for days and things to fill them up with. She carried a loose, malformed satchel that hung to her knees.

"I think I'll take that as a compliment," she replied glibly. "Though you don't have any room to talk, Duster."

"It isn't a duster, it's a trench coat. Huge difference."

"Maybe to you, but the only thing missing from your prick ensemble is a fedora. M'lady"

Naruto narrowed his eyes and surrounded himself with his coat, then turned completely invisible, shocking everyone near him, especially the Inuzukas, who suddenly couldn't smell his presence.

He reappeared behind the Yamanaka and tapped the small of her neck, startling her away from him with her ninja reflexes. She whistled appreciatively. "I take back what I said. That's badass."

Naruto crossed his arms smugly and smiled haughtily at her. "Don't look down on tailors."

She tapped the canisters still hanging from her hips. "Don't look down on loot drops."

"What was that stuff anyway?"

"The Fog of Doom. I got it from clearing a raid boss. Obscures whatever senses I want obscured. Used to be gray, but I painted it pink and purple. Added some flair, you know."

"Raid bosses? And how do you paint something that's gaseous?"

Ino dropped some of the lenses on her goggles and began juggling vials of unknown liquids that came from the folds of her coat. "Helloo? Mad scientist extraordinaire? I can paint whatever the fuck I want. As for the raid bosses, well, they're kinda hard to explain."

"Well, we have the time apparently."

00000000

"So after we established that the town of Hijinaki in Grass was going to be our trade center, we immediately set up a flow of generous offers to the ninja in the area to keep the roads clear of bandits or highway men. Since Hijinaki is a very central location and it became safe to travel there almost overnight, traders set that place up as their unofficial stopping place on their road to their final location. Although it would be generally a good idea to set up places like hot springs, or high rise hotels in order to take advantage of that stream of visitors, we set up the foundations for skilled laborers to make goods. That is, we also sent some of our base resource reserves there along with Tenten to teach blacksmithing, Hachiman to teach tailoring, Leon to teach massaging and body manipulation, along with a few other people we managed to convince to head out there to teach the people. This is going to bolster the economy enough that we're going to be able to set up banks in the area after only a few fiscal quarters and _really_ grow up the town. After that, we'll have an entire giant trading town that we'll practically own that can spread whatever word we want spread. We'll have a way to influence the way people think and the entire elemental nations by extension."

00000000

Ino nodded, storing away the vials back into her jacket. "That was one really long trip. Shika wouldn't shut his mouth for any of it."

Chouji nodded in agreement. He wasn't able to talk, seeing as he was pretty busy shoving his face full of chips.

The crunch of chips alerted a surprised Ino to his presence. "Chouji? How long have you been there?"

The portly fellow shrugged. "I was following you to administration."

"What's up man?" Naruto asked, holding out his fist.

Chouji hurriedly wiped his hand free of chip dust and reciprocated the fist with his own. "Nothing much. It's good to see you; things have been boring without you."

"So I've been told," Naruto said with a knowing smile. Chouji had on a red undershirt and pants with various types of heavy armor strapped on all over his body, most notably two very large plates that fit over either of his forearms. He also grew his hair out all shaggy to where it reached the middle of his back.

"Hey," said the dog boy "did you know that he's with Fu _and _Anko? At the same time?!"

Ino and Chouji both looked shocked at first, then turned their heads to each other looking somewhat worried.

"So who gets it then?" Ino asked.

Chouji shrugged. "I don't know. Guess the bet's off."

"What bet?" Kiba asked.

"Well," said Ino "I bet Chouji that Naruto and Fu were going to get together when he got back."

"And I bet that Naruto and Anko were going to get together," Chouji said. "But if he's with both of them, the bet doesn't really make any sense."

"You bet that he and Anko were going to get together?" Hana asked. "That sounds like a bet with bad odds."

"And the odds were going to be compensated for," Ino said.

"Am I the only one getting hung up on the fact that he's with _two_ chicks at once?" Kiba asked.

"Yes." Naruto said. "And it's starting to get a little weird."

Kiba threw his hands up in the air. "Bah! You're just a fun little bag of mysteries, aren't you? Whatever, I don't care anymore. What I _do_ care about is the fact that I don't have even a day to myself before I'm requested to go on a manhunt with you."

"What're you going to do if it's not another mission?" Hana asked. "Spa day with the gal pals?"

Kiba crossed his arms over his chest. "Can't get a win, can I?"

Naruto clapped a hand on the despondent Kiba. "Nope, not really."

"Loathe as I am to admit it, dogboy's right. Why are we just now going to find Sasuke? We had plenty of time to do it before you got here."

Naruto told them what he was told by Tsunade, leaving everybody justifiably concerned about the current state of their leadership.

"Really? This is happening because Jiraiya forgot to read a report? And Tsunade didn't follow up on it? That's pretty…" Hana trailed off.

"Fucked up?" Kiba offered.

"Fucked sideways?" Ino offered.

"Fucked beyond all recognition" Naruto offered.

"I was going to say stupid," Hana said.

"YOOOOOOOOSHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAA!"

A pair of sweaty geniuses of hard work impacted the ground next to the group with all the speed and subtlety of a meteor shower.

"Naruto-kun!" said the one of shorter stature. "I have been told that we are to embark on a journey to find our missing friend. I am very excited to show you just how much I have grown through the power of hard work and grinding for experience. Also, it's good to see you."

"Good to see you too bud," Naruto said, holding his hand out for a manly clasping of masculinity, something of which Lee was only too happy to oblige in.

"I as well am happy to see you alive and well Naruto-kun," said Gai, who was slightly winded from the morning routine of practice. The two green beasts of Konoha hadn't changed all that much other than Lee having donned a jonin jacket with quite a few close quarter combat weapons strapped in.

"Why are you two training?" Ino asked. "We're just about to go on a mission."

"We must stoke the flames of youth so that we may-"

"Enough," Hana said, already clasping the bridge of her nose to stem the coming headache. "I think we all know full well that asking for an explanation from them is like banging our head against a wall; we all know what's going to happen and we're all going to walk away with a raging headache."

This description of their mannerisms didn't seem to get the enigmatic pair down. In fact, it only seemed to strengthen their convictions. They probably would have gone on long and hard about their flames of youth too, if it weren't for the pair of Hyuugas that ruined their fun.

"Lee," Neji said sternly "I think we all know how powerful the flames of youth are. However, I'm sure that there are people in the area who are just trying to enjoy some peace and quiet. Could you please at the very least lower your voice to an acceptable level?"

Lee gave him a thumbs up and a grin with an annoyingly bright twinkle in it. "So I shall," he screamwhispered.

Neji nodded, then turned to Naruto and politely said "It is good to see you again."

Naruto nodded and held his fist out for Neji, who didn't really know what to do with it until Hinata, who had arrived next to him, kindly formed his hand into a fist and tapped it to Naruto's.

While Neji was 'aahhing' with realization, Hinata smiled kindly to Naruto and said "welcome home." They were both robed in slightly modified formal Hyuuga fighting robes with Neji's being slightly beige and Hinata's slightly lavender.

Naruto nodded a little nervously and scratched the back of his head, not exactly knowing what to say. He knew that she, according to the Romantic at Heart perk, had a crush on him a few years ago, but he hadn't looked into that section for quite a while. He didn't know what her true feelings for him were and neither did he know if she knew that he wouldn't reciprocate said unknown feelings if they became prevalent.

"It looks like we're all here," she said lightly and with unmistakable authority. "Why don't we all go down to administration together? I'm sure Shikamaru won't mind if we cut his explanation about the economic situation of the elemental nations short."

Everyone gave their own versions of a positive answer and they set off. While they all fell into their own groups of conversation, Kiba leaned in to Naruto and whispered "don't worry, she's over you." A wave of relief washed over him, but Kiba wasn't done yet. "Just make sure you don't cross her. She's gotten scary confident thanks to the game and isn't against throwing the odd palm strike to anyone who gets in her way."

Naruto looked at Hinata more closely. Although her posture and poise remained much the same, everyone treated her with much more deference than before. She also seemed more outgoing and willing to speak up should the opportunity to make a substantial difference in the conversation present itself, but stayed silent in any context other than that.

'So this is what everyone's like,' Naruto thought to himself before getting swept up in the veritable avalanche of questions regarding his training trip that followed.

00000000

"And after we upgraded our equipment with the advanced alloys that Tenten had been working on, we were able to go after the loot in the-" Shikamaru's explanation of everything he and the rest of his team accomplished was cut off as Naruto slammed the door open to kage administration, which, coincidentally, also jolted Kakashi, Yamato, Fu, Anko, Sakura, and Tsunade from their state of being half-asleep.

Tsunade violently cleared her throat and positioned herself so that she didn't look like she was two minutes away from genuinely nodding off. "Okay, okay. That's very good Shikamaru. You're doing fantastic work with the efforts to bring equity into the elemental nations. Bring the rest of your report back to me in written form and I will go over the details with a fine brush and get back to you on it."

Shikamaru raised a hand to object, but was interrupted once again by Naruto slapping a hand on his back and saying "hey Shikamaru! It's good to see you after so long. You look… the same, mostly. But that's not a bad thing or anything."

"Yeah, it's good to see you too Naruto. I was just about to get to the important part of my mission statement about how much we've changed the economic landscape of the nations. So if-"

"Nope!" Tsunade said hurriedly "Er, um, as much as we would enjoy to hear more many percentages the stock of Konoha's various state sponsored companies are on the rise, there's a more important mission that most of you here are going to take part of."

Shikamaru faltered slightly before composing himself and redirecting his mental energies. "Sasuke Uchiha."

At the mention of his name, everyone in the room stiffened a little bit and decided to do their best to do what they thought was what they normally did in order to mask their true feelings on the subject. So basically, everyone in the room except for Team 7, Anko, and Fu looked very strange for a few seconds. A fact that didn't go unnoticed by Naruto, even though he didn't look behind him to see everyone.

"But before we do that," Tsunade continued, "I have to confirm for myself just how strong Naruto has become. He also has to know just how strong you all have become as well if he's to trust your combat abilities. Hopefully we won't have to resort to that, but when there's snakes, there's fangs. So Naruto, if you would."

Naruto blinked a few times. "What?"

"The Hiraishin. Teleport us all to your favorite training ground."

"Ahh. You could have said that," he murmured as he withdrew a blank scroll from the inside of his jacket and smeared a black line of chakra infused ink on the inside, unlocking the inner mechanisms of the seal. The black ink rapidly spread out from the source and covered the entire room, specifically hooking a tendril of ink to the small of everyone's neck.

A blinking of existence later and everyone was in the exact position that they were in when they were in administration, only on the grassy training ground 7. Jiraiya and Anko, who had been sitting in chairs, fell to their asses.

"Woah," Kiba said. "I thought space travel would be… more difficult than that."

"I know, right?" Ino said. "I thought we'd be puking our guts out. That was easy."

Tsunade cleared her throat loudly. "Okay, to gauge Naruto's level, everyone attack him with all your guts, power, and powerful loot drops."

"Wait, wha-" a chakra infused fist interrupted Naruto's question. He ducked his head to the side and pulled his right leg to his chest, then sprung it forward with all the power of a heavy duty industrial piston. Tsunade, who had thrown the punch in the first place, pivoted her abdomen away from his kick. It clipped her side, however, and sent her sprawling backwards.

"Woah, wait, I didn't mean to-" Naruto grabbed the scroll that was hanging on his back and brought it up to his chest to block the kick that came from Lee. The jolt from the kick felt like he was trying to halt a charging rhino. Naruto was brought into a close quarter's combat situation with Lee, who was doing his best to get a solid connection. Naruto's reflexes were too quick for him as he brushed aside the fists and feet; dodged, leaving only a hair's breadth of air between him and the flying limbs of fury; and blocked using the scroll as a heavy cushion for the blows. They still hurt like hell, though.

He had to concede a fist to the torso in order to backpedal away from the fist of a giant Chouji, which turned the ground he had directly been in into a rather large crater. His ribs creaked with protest as he landed a few meters away from Lee's fist, but was otherwise fine.

The ground spewed upwards with pink and purple fog surrounding him, taking the shapes of vile nightmare beasts. The time Ino surrounded him with it before did not do it any justice as it was now. It was like every aspect of what he could sense was being turned on its head. Temperature blended together against his skin, he didn't know if he was up or down, his eyes were playing tricks on him, the only thing he could hear was chortled laughter, his nose burned with the smell of acrid smoke, his tongue felt numbed and full inside his mouth, no chakra could be sense outside that cloud of smoke.

Then two drills of solid man-canine combination barreled into his upper chest and lower back, flipping and tossing him around like a puppet. When he landed, his fingers grasped the shoots of grass and he regained footing from there, smoking from the friction of the two hits. He waited in a pregnant anticipation, not being able to smell, hear, see, or sense all the while. Both of his hands suddenly shot out and gripped the tip of a drill that had been barreling to his face while simultaneously jumping out of the way of three other drills. He brought the hazy figure down on top of another of the drills, then booked it away from them and the terrible fog.

It was no use. The fog followed him wherever he went and his senses were so muddled that he didn't know if he was even going in a straight line or a circle.

He stopped suddenly and waited a few moments. Frog jumping in the air, he stomped down with a good portion of his strength and cratered the ground with a dazed Kiba underneath his feet. Naruto knelt down and felt all around his face for some sort of device that would allow him to stay in the fog without any problems. Feeling a respirator, he tore it off and put it on his face. The fog lost all of its otherworldly effects immediately and became nothing more than a hindrance.

He found Ino in a tree about 50 meters away from using his chakra senses. Escaping the fog in only a few strides, he raced at Ino with his scroll in his hands, intent on bringing her down first. There was something that looked like a large branch on the ground and he jumped over it, not expecting it to turn obsidian black and wrap around his leg, bringing him down. More and more black tentacles, each with the tensile strength of steel cable, grabbed his arms and slithered up to his chest and face, completely immobilizing him.

Shikamaru stepped out of the shadow of a tree with his hands held in the Shadow Bind seal and motioned with his head to Naruto's immobile form. Chouji, who was still giant, fell with both of his shielded forearms first on the bound Naruto, creating a WHOOMPH that could be heard miles around. He looked up to Shikamaru with a confused expression. "Is it over?" he asked.

The people participating in the fight looked out of their hiding places warily. The ones who hadn't put their part into the fight were slightly distraught, seeing as how they wanted to show their stuff off.

Jiraiya stepped behind Shikamaru and put a hand on his shoulder. "Nope!" he shouted to Chouji.

Before the big boned fellow's facial expression could change, there was a sudden expansion of air as he was thrown off of the Uzumaki's form. No, the word thrown isn't a good word for it. More like hit. Like one would an oversized baseball. Despite his size, Chouji was blasted clear across the field and even rolled into the next one, startling the people training there.

Naruto got up slowly from the Chouji sized crater. The shadows that bound him were more like pieces of soggy dough draped as he stripped them off and tossed them aside. The scroll that he had been using as a club before had been unrolled and was completely blank. In his hand was what looked like a very large rectangular prism, easily as tall and thick as he was, that had two divots on one side for, presumably, either of his hands to hold.

Lee ran at him while he was still ripping off the pieces of shadow and brought a leg down on Naruto's head with all his strength. He never got there, however. When his foot was an inch away, the rectangle was brought around in incomprehensible speed, hitting his side and batting him away with all the effort that one would a wiffle ball.

Naruto grinned. "Lesson one: Taijutsu," he shouted so all could hear.

Lee recovered quickly and was joined by Gai once he realized how his student probably wouldn't be able to handle it alone.

They both faced him alone in the strong fist stance. There was no interruption from anybody else as they waited with baited breath, eager to see what would happen.

"Lee, remove your weights," Gai said, not taking his eyes off of Naruto for a second.

"But sensei-"

"Lee," Gai said with no room for argument.

The student of hard work immediately grabbed his ankle weights and threw them backwards. From the plume of smoke they created, one could reason that they had to be at least 10 times heavier than they were two and a half years ago.

Naruto smiled and worked his chakra into the rectangle. It started folding in on itself many times over until it was only a solid, round bo staff without any creases of deviation in the material.

"En garde."

The bowl cut duo vanished out of existence, only reappearing for the briefest of interludes around Naruto to deliver a blow. For his part, the Uzumaki turned into a blur of movement as he fought them off with his bo staff. The scariest part of it was the fact that his feet didn't move an inch from the ground he was fighting on, making it look like he was a ghost trying to coalesce, but only managed to get the feet down and taken care of.

Air was flung across the training grounds like no one's business and the cracks that came from his staff meeting the dynamic duo sounded like lightning was constantly hitting the source of where they were fighting.

Hinata and Neji stepped forward in perfect synchronization. Looking at the blur with their byakugan active, they smiled and stepped into the gentle fist stance. Chakra began flowing out of their palms until it reached a fever pitch and consolidated into fiery lion dogs. It flowed across their arms and bodies until it reached another fever pitch and completely enclosed their bodies in a solid armor of a flowing plastic chakra. They advanced on the fight like reticent golems of war.

Without their feet or bodies moving, their arms vanished much like the upper part of Naruto as they joined the fray. To anyone watching, it would be seen as astonishing as to how he managed to keep up for even five seconds. And to his credit, he held up for a solid six seconds before he was turned into a missile by a miscalculated move of his bo staff, sending him sky high with blood gushing from his nose.

Grimacing at his fuck up, Naruto drew a line of black ink across his samurai kimono. Seals spread out from his torso and showed up on this arms, legs, and feet. They burned a bright white before flickering out of use.

The feeling of gravity having been let up 20 fold felt like heaven to Naruto. Now devoid of his seals, Naruto looked at the ground quickly climbing to meet him with steely determination on his brow. He hit the ground like a meteor.

When the dust settled, Gai, Lee, Hinata, and Neji were knocked out and laying on the ground.

Sakura ran up to them and dragged them away from the crater to perform diagnostics. Of course Naruto made sure to not hurt them too badly, but there was always a need to be 100% percent sure.

Kakashi appeared in front of Naruto next, electricity already dancing on his fingers and hair.

"Lesson two:" Naruto said "Ninjutsu."

Six shadow clones came into existence next to him and unsealed a different weapon from inside their trench coat. The original turned his bo staff back into a rectangle and hooked it to his back.

"You know, the funny thing is that in my travels with the pervert, I tried to create the perfect weapon. One that could adapt to whatever situation I was in, one that unbreakable, one that had a lot of weight to it and was easy to use, one that was jammed full of seals to make it catch on fire or conduct electricity in a way that only I want. And before I knew it, it was of [Legendary] status. That meant that if I shadow cloned, it wouldn't clone itself along with them."

Kakashi waited for him to get to his point, muscles tensing and releasing like a wolf standing before another wolf of equal footing.

"But that didn't really mesh with my fighting style. Lots of clones with lots of strength and the unbeatable weapon was up like smoke in a mirror. So I adapted."

Yamato and Asuma walked out of the treeline at opposite ends of either of Naruto's sides.

Naruto smirked. "Versatility is the name of the game. Hope you brought yours."

00000000

Atop a knoll about half a kilometer away, everyone who wasn't actively fighting Naruto were resting up and watching the grand bouts of flame and magnificent earth structures rise from the ground like is wasn't anyone's business.

"Holy shit," Kiba said, still sore from getting stomped on "is he human? I mean, I saw his stats, but still…"

Ino whistled appreciatively. "Well, he ain't invincible. It looked like my Fog of War was actually pretty effective against him."

"But all he'd have to do would be to create enough shadow clones to the point where your Fog of War couldn't hold them all," Sakura interjected.

Ino shrugged. "I guess. Is anything else useful against him?"

"Has genjutsu worked against him yet?"

"Nope," Kurenai said "I tried as soon as the real fighting started. Nothing gets through to him." Over his two and half year hiatus, the rest of the jonin sensei had been notified about the game, even if there wasn't enough slots for them all to fit in.

"Doesn't he have the sharingan?" Chouji asked, trundling onto the hill with large dents on his forearm shields.

"And the Byakugan."

"And the ability to see what we think of him at all times."

"And what we see in other people."

"And the Strength of a Hundred."

"And sugar cum."

"And advanced senso…ry…"

Everyone slowly turned their heads to Anko, who had brought up the sugar cum.

"What?" she asked defensively. "It tastes good. Like, it's cum. It isn't supposed to taste good at all. It's supposed to taste nasty and bitter and metallic, but his tastes like sugar. It's weird, but I'm complaining."

Fu nodded in agreement. "It sorta tastes like a savory sort of sauce. Like the glaze on a big piece of meat."

"Really? It just sort of tasted like sugar to me. Like that stuff that's in the cream egg."

"So," Sakura said with wide eyes, interrupting their conversation "I'm confused on a lot of levels right now."

Kiba decided to sum it up with "he's with both of them at the same time now. They don't seem to mind it and neither does he. Apparently he also tastes good, which is really gross and weird and I want to stop this train of thought right now."

"But, he's like… more than a decade younger than you," Sakura said. It more out of shock than any real form of protest.

Anko shrugged. "It is what it is. I've thought and agonized about this too much to start doing it again. Right Fu?"

Fu nodded, then perked up and looked at a swarm of beetles flying their way.

It eventually fazed into Shino, who was walking briskly to them. Because of all the stuff obscuring his face, it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

"Oh, shit," Ino groused. "Who the fuck forgot to tell Shino?!"

"Tell me what?"

"We're gauging how effective Naruto is in battle," Ino said simplistically.

"Is he?"

There was a collective nod.

"I see," having said that, he sat down with nary a complaint.

It was a good thing that Shino wasn't one to get vindictive about being accidentally left behind.

"Wanna show your stuff off?" Hana asked. "Plenty of time left."

A strange looking bug crawled onto the tip of his index finger. "My fighting style is a bit too subtle to be of any effect to him."

"What about you two?" she asked, directing the question to Anko and Fu.

"I can only fight big," Fu said. "And I kinda like the way this course looks, sooo…"

"And I just don't feel like it," Anko said while absentmindedly petting Kashikoi, who had padded up onto her lap.

"Don't feel like doing what?" Naruto asked, laying three unconscious bodies on the ground for check-up.

"Fighting you."

"Fair enough," Naruto said. He turned to Tsunade, who had been lounging about lost in thought while everyone was talking. "So are we fit to go on the mission."

"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. Yes, you are permitted to leave Konoha and retrieve Sasuke Uchiha from the grasp of Orochimaru."

Naruto grinned and looked happily to the faces of his newfound squad. He was finally going to do it. He was finally going to get the whole team back together.

_Base Stats:_

_Naruto Uzumaki: 87109/277000 Level 276_

_Chakra: 300_

_Chakra Control: 200_

_Wisdom: 98_

_Intelligence: 150_

_Charisma: 124_

_Flexibility: 121_

_Speed: 211_

_Strength: 155_

_Endurance: 350_

_Attribute Stats:_

_Ninjutsu__:_

_Learning rate 200/200_

_shape manipulation 200/200_

_Elemental affinities:_

_[Wind 200/200 x2_

_Fire 200/200 x.5_

_Earth 200/200_

_Water 200/200_

_Lightning 200/200]_

_Genjutsu__:_

_Learning rate 200/200_

_Detection 200/200_

_Dispel 200/200_

_Taijutsu:_

_Learning rate 200/200_

_Pain tolerance 200/200_

_Form 200/200_

_Senjutsu:_

_Ability 10000/10000_

_Kenjutsu:_

_Learning rate 200/200_

_Form 200/200_

_Versatility 1000/1000_

_close-range Weapons:_

_[Bojutsu 150/150_

_Multi-sword 800/800]_

_Throwing weapons:_

_[Kunai and Shuriken 100/100_

_Senbon 150/150]_

_Jinchuuriki jutsu:_

_Control 1000/1000_

_Shape manipulation 1000/1000_

_Medical ninjutsu:_

_Learning rate: 200/200_

_Ability: 400/400_

_Sealing:__  
Mastery 200/200  
Formulaic complexity 810/1000  
Sealing cryptography 798/1000  
__Sensing:  
__Range 200/200  
Discerning 200/200  
__Chakra puppetry:  
__Mechanical genius 200/200  
Multi-perception 200/200__  
Miscellaneous: __*Only stats of note will be shown*  
trap laying 50/50  
trap detection 50/50  
poison resistance 50/50  
Seduction 50/50  
Gardening 50/50  
tailoring 50/50  
carpentry 50/50  
forging 50/50  
field medicine 50/50  
Poison identification and synthesizing 50/50  
Medicinal identification and synthesizing 50/50  
Teaching 50/50  
Politics 50/50_

_Merits:_

_Affability: unlocks 'how people see me' in the people section_

_Medical ninjutsu: unlocks medical ninjutsu in the affinity section_

_Romantic at heart: unlocks the stats on how people romantically see you as well as their romantic preferences_

_Sense of the ninken: The senses of the user is heightened to the point of similarity to that of a ninken_

_Harem ending: All the females that are romantically interested in the user and all the females the user is romantically interested in have lowered reservations to the concept of sharing the user._

_Sensing Ninjutsu: The ability to track people based on the chakra signature_

_Sealing: The ability and use of sealing type jutsu's_

_Ninja puppetry: The ability to use mechanical puppets using chakra strings for various purposes._

_Sharingan Stage 1_

_Sharingan Stage 2_

_Sharingan Stage 3: the sight of the legendary uchiha clan. the ability to track movements, predict movements, copy chakra usage through use of sight, dispel most of any genjutsu, and unlocks all the next series of sharingan mcguffin abilities._

_Byakugan: the sight of the legendary Hyuga clan. the ability to see 359 degrees in any direction, the ability to see the inner workings of the chakra coil network, allows the proper usage of the gentle fist technique._

_Strength of a Hundred: Tsunade's legendary super strength technique_

_Vague Hiraishin: allows the use of the legendary teleportation technique with an accuracy of 20 feet within the marked seal._

_[scroll down to see more]_

_Achievements:_

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: PASSED THE ACADEMY_

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: BECAME A GENIN (FOR REAL) _

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: DEFEATED HAKU OF THE ICE _

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: 'SEDUCE ANKO'_

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: PASSED THE FIRST CHUNIN EXAM PHASE  
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: PASSED THE SECOND CHUNIN EXAM PHASE  
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: DEFEATED (ENRAGED) GYUKI_

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: BECAME A SPECIAL JONIN  
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: DEFEATED KIMIMARU_

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: BECAME A JONIN_

_[scroll down to see more]_


	36. a sight to behold

Chapter 36

The sky was on fire and the earth was a mass of writhing snakes the likes of which made keeping steady footing nigh impossible. All around, there jutted out giant bones belonging to the skeletons of eldritch horrors; some of them still moving. The air was hazy and distorted everything that one wasn't looking directly at.

But Sasuke didn't have any problems with that. Because standing right in front of him was his best friend, Naruto.

"Sasuke!" Naruto cried out, obviously relieved much to his own amusement.

"How long's it been?" The Uchiha asked jovially with a fake smile. Or was it an honest smile with evil intention? Sasuke didn't know. He didn't really care. The only thing that he could honestly say he could feel was the smooth contour of his chokuto's handle as he rubbed it restlessly.

Naruto smiled. "About three years. But wait, listen, that doesn't matter anymore. Whatever you've done doesn't matter anymore. Nothing does. If you come back with me peacefully, you'll be welcomed back to Konoha." The naïve boy ended that sentence with an upturned laugh. Like he were giving an irresistible offer that only a fool would think to turn down. Like he was saying it only as a formality.

Sasuke's smile widened and widened until his face stretched against his teeth and gums. It was a ghastly look. "I'm sorry, Naruto," Sasuke managed to get through as he slowly unsheathed his chokuto "but I've got a mission to do, and you're going to help me do it."

Naruto's face turned from relieved and happy to confused and wary with a delectable sluggishness. "Wait, what? I don't understand- We can go on your mission once we get back to Konoha and get everything sorted. Is that what you mean?"

Sasuke shook his head and advanced upon his best friend with absolutely no hurry in his step. Everything paused. The air stopped moving. The snakes that made up the ground all turned to stone and crunched beneath his feet. The fire in the sky stopped flickering back and forth. The imposing skeletal structures all paused with baited breath. Naruto too turned still. His legs didn't move and his arms were held quick to his side. He seemed to realize what Sasuke's intentions were and began struggling against the unearthly bonds that held him still.

There was no sound in that world with the exception of the stone snakes crunching underneath Sasuke's feet as he drew nearer and nearer to his best friend. The tip of his sword began grinding into the earth and produced an ear rending screech. Naruto wasn't able to speak. He wasn't able to move. He wasn't able to hope or dream or think or do anything except look in terror at the blade being held in Sasuke's hand as he advanced with a palpable murderous intent.

Sasuke stopped in front of Naruto and waited a beat.

Then he waited two.

Then three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

He waited long enough for Naruto to crack a wary smile. He began to hope again. To hope that all this scary stuff was Sasuke pulling a prank or just being mean for the fun of it, as they haven't seen each other in a little under three years at that point. "S-Sasuke, look, if this is all a game, then it's okay. I forgi-"

Naruto was shocked into silence. Now, no sound was audible in the world they were in. No sound at all except for the small pitter patter of blood dripping out of the stab wound in his heart. Naruto looked at the stream of life fluid, then to Sasuke's sword, which was slick with it, then to Sasuke himself. He was grinning. His eyes changed from the standard three tomoe Sharingan to the Mangenkyou Sharingan.

That was the last thing Naruto saw as he slumped to the ground, dead.

The sword used to kill him clattered to the ground next, becoming submerged in the puddle of blood radiating from the dead body. Sasuke clutched his hands to his eyes.

First came the realization that he had finally done it, then came the chuckle. A chuckle which turned into laugh. A laugh which turned into a full blown guffaw. A guffaw which turned into a scream of jubilance of the fact that he had finally done it.

Naruto was dead. He had the Mangenkyou. He was going to kill Itachi.

As Sasuke laughed into the sky of fire, everything churned unnaturally until the world's colors mixed into a sameness that Sasuke was drawn through.

00000000

He awoke blind and covered in sweat. Breathing heavily from an unknown strain on his body, Sasuke sat up abruptly and discharged lightning chakra everywhere around him. He heard a few electrical explosions to either of his sides which spewed sparks and flames and burned him a little on either of his arms.

When he stopped discharging the electricity, his hands scrabbled up to his eyes, which were covered in a thick cloth. He peeled them away slowly as they were stuck to his skin with some sort of adhesive.

Opening his eyes, he realized that he was in a pitch black room, so he lit a fire in his hand and held it steadily to see his surroundings.

It was a small room akin to a standard hospital room. There used to be a light on the ceiling, but he had blown that out in the pursuit of self-defense. Broken machines that were meant for keeping an eye on his vitals fizzed out on either side having gone through the same treatment as the lights.

"Hello, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke threw the ball of fire at the source of the voice in pure instinct. It fizzed out before it got even within a foot of Orochimaru's head, who only grinned more widely. He had seemed to be a part of the scenery so much so that Sasuke hadn't even realized he was there until he spoke.

"Orochimaru," Sasuke said, still confused and getting his breath back "what have you done to me this time?"

"I gave you power," Orochimaru replied vaguely.

"Power?"

"The power to kill your brother. The power to raze Konoha to the ground. The power to do whatever you please. I don't really care because our mutual partnership is breaking off right now."

Sasuke subconsciously reached to his side, where his chokuto was always belted to, but felt nothing. A growing pit of despair began welling up in his stomach and he glared hard at the snake. "What do you mean by that?"

Orochimaru smiled cruelly. "Oh, don't be so tense. My prerogative has changed significantly since you accepted to be my apprentice. I don't plan to take your body."

When he refused to elaborate, Sasuke looked him all over suspiciously, trying for anything that might betray his true intentions. When he found none, the Uchiha looked at him and flatly asked "then what is your plan?"

The snake shrugged. "Little bit of good. Little bit of bad. A whole lot of in between. Over the past few months, I've come to realize that there's much more at play here than you and your little revenge fantasy. I plan to observe all of it. What you do next is wholly none of my concern."

"Wait, wait. Back up. You said power. What did you do to me?"

"I put you through an illusion."

"The Sharingan sees through all illusion."

"You of all people should know that falsehood."

Sasuke tapped his fingers to the bed impatiently. "It can see chakra and the way it flows, making it very difficult to entrap someone who has the Sharingan."

Orochimaru seemed quite amused by what Sasuke said. "Yes, it sees through chakra. It's hard to put someone under a genjutsu who has the Sharingan because most of the time, they can quite literally _see_ the genjutsu being placed. That being said, not all illusions are induced by genjutsu."

"Stop being vague! What did you do to me?"

"I drugged you," Orochimaru said harshly, getting tired of their back and forth. "And what a strange drug it is. It shows the person in vivid and lucid detail anything and everything that they want. The next stage of Sharingan is achieved by experiencing the death of someone you're close to, so I put you under and gave you what you wanted. Lord knows that you're the only person this technique would work on. Anyone who so desperately wants to see their friend die by their own hands has more than a screw or two loose in their brain."

"Then that means… I have the Mangenkyou?"

Orochimaru tossed him a mirror, which was caught without skipping a beat. Sasuke brought the mirror up to his eyes and saw what Orochimaru had been staring at their entire conversation.

The snake got up and went to the door, but before exiting, turned his head and said "you can have anything you want from the base. I'm leaving. It's been a pleasure, Sasuke-kun. Kukuku."

Sasuke barely even registered Orochimaru's absence as he was too busy marveling at his new eyes.

The entire base burned down twenty minutes later, engulfed in black flames.

00000000

_Kiba Inuzuka: EXP: 72897/99000._

_Level: 98_

_Chakra: 121_

_Chakra Control: 72_

_Wisdom: 39_

_Intelligence: 91_

_Charisma: 15_

_Flexibility: 97_

_Speed: 103_

_Strength: 101_

_Endurance: 50_

_Hana Inuzuka: EXP: 82179/95000._

_Level: 94_

_Chakra: 79_

_Chakra Control: 113_

_Wisdom: 98_

_Intelligence: 124_

_Charisma: 115_

_Flexibility: 96_

_Speed: 103_

_Strength: 60_

_Endurance: 49_

_Shino Aburame: EXP: 13027/90000._

_Level: 89_

_Chakra: 115_

_Chakra Control: 60_

_Wisdom: 81_

_Intelligence: 86_

_Charisma: _

_Flexibility: 77_

_Speed: 114_

_Strength: 92_

_Endurance: 61_

_Hinata Hyuuga: EXP: 807/113000._

_Level: 112_

_Chakra: 50_

_Chakra Control: 150_

_Wisdom: 74_

_Intelligence: 90_

_Charisma: 46_

_Flexibility: 131_

_Speed: 122_

_Strength: 63_

_Endurance: 54_

_Neji Hyuuga: EXP: 83816/109000._

_Level: 108_

_Chakra: 54_

_Chakra Control: 146_

_Wisdom: 80_

_Intelligence: 86_

_Charisma: 36_

_Flexibility: 127_

_Speed: 114_

_Strength: 88_

_Endurance: 61_

_Ino Yamanaka: EXP: 61930/75000._

_Level: 74_

_Chakra: 78_

_Chakra Control: 82_

_Wisdom: 79_

_Intelligence: 120_

_Charisma: 101_

_Flexibility: 64_

_Speed: 76_

_Strength: 57_

_Endurance: 48_

_Chouji Akamichi: EXP: 12534/91000._

_Level: 90_

_Chakra: 100_

_Chakra Control: 57_

_Wisdom: 44_

_Intelligence: 51_

_Charisma: 82_

_Flexibility: 36_

_Speed: 32_

_Strength: 198_

_Endurance: 254_

_Shikamaru Nara: EXP: 6701/92000._

_Level: 91_

_Chakra: 81_

_Chakra Control: 97_

_Wisdom: 154_

_Intelligence: 203_

_Charisma: 12_

_Flexibility: 59_

_Speed: 65_

_Strength: 64_

_Endurance: 57_

_Lee Rock: EXP: 2/116000._

_Level: 115_

_Chakra: 3_

_Chakra Control: 2_

_Wisdom: 14_

_Intelligence: 21_

_Charisma: 64_

_Flexibility: 219_

_Speed: 268_

_Strength: 291_

_Endurance: 121_

_"Do you have that?"_

_Naruto's head was swimming with the dump of information given to him by Shikamaru. "I… I think so. Mostly. Kinda. Not much. Nothing, really. Did you honestly expect me to memorize that right out of the gate?"_

_Shikamaru sighed into his palm. "Okay, think of it like this: Chouji is the tank. Hinata, Neji, and Lee are damage dealers. Ino and Hana are healers. Kiba and I are support. If Chouji needs to swap out, he can switch with Lee, but not for long. Ino can also do support, but she doesn't like it. Understand that and you'll be fine."_

_"Okay, that makes a bit more sense. Basically, Chouji gets the attention of the attackers; Hinata, Neji, and Lee go in to lay down the hurt; you and Kiba make sure the attackers are slowed and that everyone is doing their best in the fight; and Ino and Hana heal people that get hurt."_

_"Right on it. I also have a few battle formations that everyone's drilled on and everyone can split off into smaller and smaller groups depending on the situation at hand."_

_"And what about Shino?"_

_"Shino is… well, he's Shino. He only comes in when we need him to."_

_"Okay, so what about Shino?"_

_"I told you- just… Okay, if Shino needs to step in, then we're on the wrong mission. You don't need to know any more than that."_

_"Okay, whatever. Where do I play in?"_

_Shikamaru shrugged. "Anywhere you want, really. We're on a mission to retrieve Sasuke and possibly kill Orochimaru if it's both practical and feasible. That means that there could be any amount of slippery and strange foes and situations that I can't account for. Do whatever you need to do based on what you think is right. There's not enough time to fit you in the battle formations without everyone losing at least a little bit focus, anyway."_

_Naruto looked around a bit as if he just realized it was only him and Shikamaru walking amidst the hulking trunks of ancient trees. "Where is everyone?" he asked._

_"You can't tell?"_

_"Well, yeah, I know where everyone is. I was mostly asking for the why."_

"This is a raid area. They're scouting and kiting all the enemies away from Kiba and Hana."

"Wait… we're under attack? Is that what all those different signatures were?"

Shikamaru shrugged. "Probably. Raid zones get harder and harder the farther out you go from your home. Right now, we're in an area that a level 60 would have a bit of trouble with, but the difficulty and reward gain scales to the amount of people in a zone at any given time. As it is, we could do the raid with almost no trouble, but it would be faster and easier just to keep the enemies alive so the harder ones don't spawn. How have you not run into one of these before?"

"I don't know. Maybe it requires a team for it to activate?"

"I didn't see anything like that in my walkthrough. But then again, that particular piece of hardware is pretty strange and often leaves vital information out."

"So wait, these raid zones. What are they? I mean, what do they do most of the time?"

"Kill the little ones, the medium ones come up. Kill the medium ones, the big ones come up. Kill he big ones, the boss comes up. Kill the boss, then get the loot. The enemies might be anything from spiders, rats, or wolves, all the way to bandits or brigands. They all act with their own specific logics that they can't deviate from as far as I can tell. The boss usually has a piece of equipment that's really helpful."

"Like what?"

Shikamaru fished around the inside of his vest and pulled out a mini flashlight. He clicked it on and the brightest light Naruto had ever seen came into existence right in front of him. Anything that the flashlight pointed to was turned white from the sheer magnitude of power that the flashlight had stored in it. The shadows it created were the darkest shades of black that he had ever seen. Naruto didn't even know what he would do if it were pointed directly at him.

With a click, the flashlight was off and back inside the Nara's jacket. "It's good for making shadows, so I got it," he explained.

Naruto whistled. "Got anything for me?"

"We took the good stuff for ourselves. Also, you seem more than well-equipped at the moment."

"I've really only got things under my belt that are good for doing a lot of different things at the same time. A super flashlight, however, that just sounds cool."

"It does, which is why I'm the one who has it. Anyway, do you have any plans for when we get there?"

"I don't know," Naruto said, biting his lip in a rare sign of worry. "I want to try talking him home of course, but I've got a sinking feeling that he's going to have to be dragged back."

"Are you up for doing that?"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that," Naruto said as he affectionately patted the large scroll slung over his back. "V-chan and I are unstoppable together?"

"V-chan?"

"V for Versatility. That's kind of becoming my thing."

"Well, okay. That being said, I don't doubt your combat prowess, just your ability to do what might need to be done."

"Like what?"

"Like killing him if it come down to that. None of us have seen him in years and for all we know, he's had his head messed around in and is too far gone. With the power of the game, we have all become strong. Stronger than I think we could have ever become without. But we don't know what Orochimaru could have done to him when we were grinding for experience and loot. There's a reason our strike force is so large. There are just too many things that could go wrong on this mission."

Naruto took a few beats to respond. "It's won't come to that."

Shikamaru didn't look too sure. "I really hope you're right."

00000000

Back at Konoha

"So when are you going to tell him?" Fu asked nonchalantly. As she lay on the soft grass of her favorite training ground, watching and making mental notes about the movements of her students, everything seemed like it was coming up Team Naruto. By now, hers, Anko's, and Naruto's love life had managed to circulate around the entire village, sparking up all a manner of conversation and rumors around it. It was a good thing that Fu and Anko weren't really ones that would care about other people of them.

"Tell him what?" Anko asked with a bit of grump in her voice. She was still a little sore over the fact that she couldn't go on the mission with him. Damn rules about lovers not being allowed to go on the same missions should there be a chance of lethality in them. She understood why they were there, to make sure members of the team didn't make any hasty actions based on their relationships, but it still stung that she wasn't able to go help him.

"That… well… you know."

"I'm not."

Fu looked away from her students to look at Anko with a quizzical expression. "Excuse me? Isn't that sort of, you know, important?"

"I'll just tell that I don't want kids. He won't pry any more than that."

"You don't want kids?"

"I didn't say that. I just said that I'm going to _tell_ him that I don't."

"Starting a relationship off with lies isn't exactly the best idea."

"Well," Anko said, propping herself up on an elbow and giving Fu a half-glare "what do you want me to do?"

"Tell the truth?" she guessed.

"Mmhmm," Anko hummed with a dark quirk of the lips "let's just see how that conversation'll play out. 'Hey Naruto, guess what? I'm barren and can't have children.' 'Oh my God Anko, I'm so sorry. Do you need help? A shoulder to cry on? How did it happen?' 'Funny you should mention that. It's actually a cause of the mega cancer that was in my gut after you skewered me with your tailed cloak. You probably don't remember it because there were so many things altering your state of mind at the time, but it was most certainly your fault that I can't bear kids.'"

Fu was silenced upon the realization that she was probably on a verbal minefield and that the softest misstep might alight the whole field aflame. "You sound bitter," she remarked neutrally after much deliberation.

"I'm not… bitter," Anko said helplessly as she laid back down and gazed up at the leaves on the tree above her. "I honestly didn't think about kids all that much even just a few years back. And I know that we can do a whole lot more things like get a surrogate or adopt, if we actually decide that we want them, but it still doesn't feel good, having that option taken away from me."

"Do you hold it against him?"

"What? No! God no. It was more my fault than anything else. I saw what state he was in when he was in that ring. He wasn't there anymore. It was just a monster inhabiting his body. Even so, I just had to jump to him and try to bring him to his senses. Granted, I wasn't in the best of mental states at the time, but it's not his fault and I would never hold it against him."

"Then why the saltiness?"

"Saltiness? Oh, that fake conversation was just how I thought Naruto would hear it. It doesn't matter if I don't blame him if he just goes out and blames himself. Which, might I add, he absolutely will if I tell him."

Fu was about to disagree, if only to make Anko feel better, but not words left her mouth. She knew that if Anko told him the true story of why she was barren, then Naruto would blame himself something awful. How couldn't he? He was the type of person to shoulder blame and hatred, after all.

"Well," The Jinchuuriki finally said with a higher lilt of voice, trying to change the tone of conversation "I don't know about you, but I want a lot of kids. But before that, we're going to get married. And it's going to be a huge thing. The whole village will be invited. My dress is going to be super big and poofy. Naruto's going to look so handsome in a suit. Tears will be shed afreely when we say our vows. The cake's going to as big as our house. We're going to move into the suburbs. It's going to be awesome."

Frankly, Anko was shocked speechless by such a display of wanton girliness. As she listened on about Fu's plan to name all their kids after the various types of Hercules beetles, she had to speak up to interrupt. "Hold on hold on hold on. I thought you were a tomboy."

Fu turned her unamused eyes to Anko. "You know, just because I spent a good portion of my childhood sequestered deep in my village's woods, avoiding contact with everybody, doing outdoorsy things; just because my skin is tan and my 'girls' aren't as big as yours; just because I like to keep my hair short and wear clothing that puts more emphasis on mobility than looking good, doesn't mean that I don't like girly things every now and then. Everyone else thinks about their own ideal future. Why can't mine feature big weddings, big festivals, big families, and big… big… and a fourth example of large size?"

"Sorry, sorry. I just didn't take you for the maternal type. Anyway, you can have your big wedding. I don't want any part of it."

Fu looked genuinely downtrodden at that remark. "You don't?" she asked, looking like a kicked puppy.

Anko was quick to try and ease her sadness. "Woah, wait a minute. It's not that I don't want to do the deed, it's just that I don't like dresses. And big parties. And a double wedding is a little bit…"

"The reason you don't want a wedding reception is because… you don't like dresses?" Fu asked in deadpan.

"What? I don't like the way they feel. Also, I just don't look good in dresses. And everyone we know is going to be there, staring at us. No thank you."

Fu scooted a little bit closer to Anko with a knowing smile on her face. "How long have we known each other?" she asked.

"I don't know? Three years?"

"Sounds about right. Do you think that three years is enough for me to know just what you're thinking even if you're saying something else?"

Anko didn't answer.

"It's okay if you don't want to do a double wedding. We can do a separate one at a different time with a smaller venue and less general recognition. But I think that if you don't get a reception, you're going to regret it a lot later in life. We're ninja, you know? Shit happens. Try to experience what you can, when you can."

Anko laughed lightly. "You sound a lot older than you really are. And you do know that he hasn't proposed to us yet? And that we've been an official couple, well we can't really call this a couple, can we? We've been in a triangular romantic relationship for less than a week. You know that right?"

Fu grinned devilishly. "Which is why _I'm _going to propose. As soon as he gets back, I'm getting on one knee and asking him for his hand. I've even got a ring and everything."

If Anko looked shocked before, now she looked absolutely gobsmacked. A facial expression which Fu quickly caught onto.

"What? I know what I want and I want what I know. There anything wrong with that?"

"…I guess not. Should've expected something like this from you, is all."

"Only this is, you know that he's not going to agree unless we make this a fair trade deal," Fu said, jumping her eyebrows up and down.

Anko let loose a frustrated groan. "Okay, married life it is."

It was Fu's turn to look shocked this time. "Wow. Didn't think you'd agree to that so quickly."

Anko shrugged. "It's not like I can imagine being with someone other than him. Might as well."

"I should really say that your attitude isn't exactly what one should have when they're agreeing to marriage, but whatever gets you there, I guess."

Anko got up and began stretching her muscles out. As Fu followed suit, Anko turned to her and gave her a smile. Not a smirk, not a dark grin, but a genuine smile. "I've got a feeling that the next few days are going to be pretty eventful. You're right. I love him. He loves me. That's not going to change and we don't know what tomorrow will bring. We're going to be sister wives before too long, but before that…" Anko turned to face Fu's genin students who were still sparring with each other a ways away from the tree they were chatting at "We're going to whip you three into fighting shape!" she yelled just loud enough for the three to hear her.

The sounds of bitching and moaning were like music to her ears.

00000000

Near Konoha

There were two. One was the five tails and the other was the four tails.

The four tails would, every now and then, begin writhing in pain and confusion, but would never be able to get his body, weighed down by furnace armor, up even the slightest of increments. He didn't seem lucid either and Nagato didn't see the need to silence him. The five tails was silent, as he'd been for the day that he'd been laying there.

This Madara that Nagato was perpetually stationed across from was always grinding on his nerves. Nagato didn't know why and wasn't able to pinpoint any part of his personality that would make him feel that way, but it was there nonetheless.

He didn't like how things were progressing. It didn't feel real. It felt artificial. Nagato had always felt that he was at least marginally in control of how the world was changing, but as of late, that was not the case anymore. Nagato felt like he and everyone around him were on a conveyor belt playing to whims of an unchangeable current.

All in all, it more just a feeling of _not feeling right_. The only consolation that he could give himself was the fact that no matter what happened in the days to come, the end was on the horizon. And that is complex and strange gets a sudden clarity when one can look on with hindsight.

That's all he really wanted. To know that he was doing the right thing.

00000000

At the destroyed base of operations

"Well shit," Kiba groused, having just caught up the rest of the group and seeing what they were looking at.

The place that the trail was leading to was covered in giant bouts of black flame, incinerating everything inside, including malformed and misshapen bodies of experiments gone wrong.

"It doesn't take a mystic to figure out that Sasuke was here recently," Hana said. "That could work in our favor though. We don't have any leads now, but I've got a feeling that he left quite the trail," she said in reference to the large trees that had been uprooted by what seemed like the hands of giants and thrown around haphazardly.

"This plan always hinged on us raiding the base that the scent led us to and raiding it for information," Shikamaru said. "It's luck that he's at the same base that he was at when he left Konoha. Finding him should be remarkably easier now. Though…" Shikamaru gestured to the sickly looking fire and wanton destruction around him "I'm not sure if I really want to."

"We're finding him and dragging him back to Konoha," Naruto said resolutely, his face steely at the sight of such destruction.

"I know, I know. Still, I might have revise our plan to take weird black flames into account."

"That's just so… unyouthful," Lee murmured.

Neji gave the despondent young lad a few claps on the shoulder.

The entire group just looked at the destruction for a few seconds. They took it all in and burned it into their minds. There was no mistaking the topography of the scene for them. This was no battle. It was a way to test new abilities. To practice sadism. To exult in his own power. They took those few moments to themselves to contemplate silently that their friend might be gone for good.

Then a tree behind them exploded into splinters of wood and smoking dust. There was a line of steam from what remained of the tree to Naruto's hand, which was covered in a gauntlet of black metal and sparking with errant electricity.

Nothing had to be said for everyone to get their own weapons out and get into their fighting poses. Chouji raced to put himself in between the line from the tree to Naruto and held out his two shield clad arms, eyeing everything, looking for what might be the danger. Lee, Neji, and Hinata were right behind him, each prepping their chakra to be released. Ino hung close to Shikamaru and took out a few vials of unnamed liquid while a black pool of shadow radiated from Shikamaru. Hana and Kiba took the rear with Akamaru and the Haimaru brothers backing them up, all with their versions of hackles raised.

"Naruto," Shikamaru whispered after a few strained seconds passed "what was it?"

Kashikoi, knowing what Naruto was about to do, jumped away from the team and hid behind a bush a few yards away. Hinata's and Neji's Byakugan were scouring the area, but they couldn't see a thing. Everyone started to lower their guard when no enemy made itself known after a few more seconds after that.

In a flurry of motion, Naruto unsealed a long katana blade from one of the scrolls in his jacket and sunk it up to the hilt in the earth. He withdrew it slick with blood.

_That_ put everyone back on edge.

With a practiced precision, the group changed their positioning around Naruto, who seemed to be the only person who knew what was going on, even though he wasn't verbalizing anything.

The long katana went back into the scroll into his jacket and he unsealed V-chan from the giant scroll on his back.

Something akin to a handle clicked out and Naruto grabbed it, leveraging it as he swung the mighty cylinder around as it transformed into something else. He was left with something that looked like a bazooka, with the exception that he held it near his mid-thigh by two handles near the top and bottom.

A hooked blade with a line leading into the bazooka suddenly shot out of the backend and rooted itself into the trunk of yet another tree, scaring Kiba, who it shot past, so much so that he nearly lost control of his bowels.

It was a good thing that he didn't.

Naruto hefted the now rooted weapon onto his shoulder and began aiming it near the ground, waving it around almost like he were drunk. When his team members realized that he wasn't waving it around wantonly and that he was actually aiming at something that zipped underground like a sparrow through the air, they flowed around the point of his weapon like anchovies around a shark, hoping to dear god that they weren't going to get hit by its perceived backlash.

After what seemed like forever, a huge harpoon rocketed out of his device and sunk through the dirt and soil way too fast than what should be physically possible, as evidenced by the tether unspooling quickly from the bazooka-like item.

Everyone stared at the unspooling line with baited anticipation. With a click, it stopped moving. Naruto, wide-eyed, shouted "GET BACK!" and dove away from the device.

Not questioning his order, everyone dove out of the way. The reason became all too apparent when V-chan started pulling the line in, setting itself snug against the tree. Almost like it was attached to a marlin in the depths of the sea, the line began zipping around, carving up the dirt like rotten butter. The tree it was attached to began leaning in and distorting. Almost like it were sensing that, more and more lines shot out of the backend and rooted themselves into different trees.

This happened more and more until it seemed like half the forest was under the weight of whatever was underneath them, getting pulled slowly, yet steadily, up to the forest floor.

Finally, the ground directly in front of the device distended into a wide cracked dome and exploded, sending mud, dirt, and rocks scattering across the forest.

The line slowed to a stop as the harpoon was sucked back into it and along with it, its quarry: a lanky individual caked with mud and twitching, almost like there was a constant stream of electricity going through him. Poking out his chest, covered in gore and blood, was the tip of the hooked harpoon. Whatever he was, he was still breathing laboriously.

Naruto walked up to him and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for something.

The breathing quickly turned to a sickly laughter. The quarry stopped twitching and cleared the mud from his face, turning his pasty visage to Naruto, looking for all intents and purposes, like one of the dead.

"Hello, Naruto-kun," Orochimaru said "I know that we're meeting formally under strained circumstances, but-" whatever he was about to say was interrupted by Naruto's fist flying through his head, knocking his jaw clear off his face and skittering into the woodworks.

Orochimaru, for his part, just looked at Naruto like he had committed a faux paus at a lavish party. From the hole that used to be his mouth, a new Orochimaru burgeoned out and fell to the mud by Naruto's feet.

He stood up and dusted himself off. There was nothing in his stance that denoted anything hostile.

"What do you want?" Naruto asked with a sneer.

Orochimaru chortled his amusement like a madman. "Come now, what do you think I am to glare at me with such intensity?"

"Evil," Naruto said harshly.

"Well I prefer to think of myself as chaotic neutral," Orochimaru replied. "Now, I think that as strange as it sounds, our interests lie closely to each other."

"You killed Gramps," Naruto ground out.

"Yes."

"You nearly destroyed Konoha."

"I suppose you could say that."

"You kidnapped Sasuke."

"He came to me willingly. Listen, we can sit here hashing it out over who wronged who, but you have your own goal and I have mine. We can help each other out."

"You're a madman."

"Does that mean that you don't want to know where Sasuke's going?"

Naruto's teeth were clenched tightly together as he said "he's going to Itachi."

"That's a start, to be sure, but do you know where Itachi is?"

Naruto's silence spoke for himself.

"Ahhh, now here is where we can help each other. It wasn't luck that Sasuke happened to be at the base that he first traveled to; that was my doing. I knew that you were coming for him."

"Hold on," Shikamaru said, appearing from the brush along with the rest of team Naruto "how did you know that? No, more importantly, you know that the trail is years old. Absolutely nobody should be able to track it other than Kiba and Hana."

Orochimaru quirked a brow at the lazy Nara. "Because they hold the roles of 'trackers' in your party, no?"

Everyone felt their gut clench at the word 'party'. Naruto grabbed the snake man's throat and punched him against the tree neck first. "What do you know?" Naruto said with a quiet intensity.

"Precious little," Orochimaru wheezed out, smile not vanishing from his face. "Now, if you'd be so kind as to unhand me?"

The snake Sannin fell from the small height and rubbed at his throat with a feigned woefulness. "Ever wondered why you couldn't find your fingers?" he asked.

Naruto clenched his hand reflexively. The fingers Fu grew from her exoskeleton were still of a much different shade of skin even after the two and a half years away. He'd told the story to many an interesting peddler or bored villager. Nobody ever believed him. "What are you getting at?" Naruto asked.

"To make a long story short: I took some of your blood and injected into a few of my test subjects. They all died bloodily, but it piqued my interest. So when you ever so kindly reduced my head to a fine paste the last time we met, I made sure to find and eat your missing appendages for later when I escaped in my snake form. I made a few doomed clones of you and when Sasuke knocked on my front door, I took a few of the clones' parts and substituted them for your friend's. Imagine my surprise when I found a glitchy videogame guidebook in his satchel."

"Sasuke has the power of the videogame?" Shikamaru asked.

"It's imperfect," Orochimaru assented "which is why I need your help with just a tiny little tidbit of information."

"…and this help is?" Naruto asked, still glowering at the grotesque man.

"Take out your guidebook. I want to ask it a question. Do so and I'll tell you where Sasuke is. It should help shave of a good portion of time tracking him, no?"

Naruto pulled the book from the inside of his trenchcoat, opened it, and shoved it in Orochimaru's face. "Make it quick," Naruto said, growing tired of conversing with someone he wanted to turn into a smear.

Orochimaru cleared his throat and addressed the guidebook. "Would you please tell me, what are the end conditions of this videogame? What specific actions leads to GAME OVER?"

From inside the guidebook, the robotic female voice sounded clearly out to everyone in attendance _"the only conditions required for this version of Naruto: the Videogame to end is the defeat of the ones known collectively as Madara and the suppression of Mother Kaguya. There may be extraneous conditions depending on specific choices and unforeseen circumstances, but you have not met those. The only other condition is the death of the main character."_

**AN/ have a gentlemanly day.**


	37. a log to the fire

Chapter 37

"Hold on," Shikamaru said as he and the rest of the team finally grouped together upon the realization that Orochimaru was a minimal threat "it can't be that easy."

Naruto looked at Shikamaru, shocked "you're not entertaining the idea of sacrificing the main character, are you?"

"What? No, don't be stupid. I meant finding out the parameters of the end game. I tried asking that question a dozen times over each with a different way to phrase it. How is it that Orochimaru has the right to do so?"

"Also," Ino piped up "what exactly is GAME OVER? 'Cuz that sounds way too ominous."

Orochimaru shrugged. "Somehow, I doubt it will have something to do with the death of all the players. Most likely, the guidebooks and all related hardware will simply vanish. That's all conjecture though."

Chouji tapped Shikamaru's shoulder and leaned in close to his ear so he could whisper "Shika, should we be talking to him? Weren't we sent here to… you know…"

"I can hear you perfectly fine, little butterfly," Orochimaru said, very amused at the now blushing Chouji. "If you wish to kill me, then fine. Nothing's stopping you. Well, nothing except the fact that I'm practically immortal and I will most definitely be back. But if you do kill me, then you won't receive what I have to offer."

"I don't like this," Neji stated defiantly. "He's a snake in both a literal and metaphorical sense. He's planning something and there's no telling what havoc he will sow. We should kill him. As many times as it takes for him to stop coming back."

"I can promise you that the gifts will be worth it," Orochimaru said enticingly.

No one said anything after that for a few tense seconds. In it, everyone eyed everyone else, trying to grasp what they were thinking and what their next plan of attack would be. Everyone except for Orochimaru and Naruto, who hadn't stopped his intense glare at the Snake in question.

"We should at least hear him out," Kiba said finally. "Gifts don't exactly sound like the worse things in the world right about now."

After a few more seconds of no one saying anything, Orochimaru took that as a yes and reached inside his robes to pull out a few small boxes. He reached them out to Naruto, but Naruto held up a hand and said "no, open them up first and show us the contents."

Orochimaru did so obediently and held up a few pairs of sunglasses and a smaller rectangular object. The rectangle opened up and inside were a couple of pairs of medical grade eye contacts.

"What do they do?" Naruto asked.

"It would be easier for you to see for yourself."

Naruto let loose a large breath of air. He honestly didn't have any time to be dealing with Orochimaru. Sasuke was only going farther and farther and Naruto was stuck dealing with a backstabbing snake. "Fine," he growled, taking the glasses and contacts from Orochimaru and running a diagnostics over them for a few seconds. From his quick observations, he could tell that they weren't designed to be innately harmful. Instead, they filled a sort of support role. What that support role was, he couldn't tell.

When he put them on, he had to blink a few times to see if he was actually seeing right. Over everyone's head was a red bar and a blue bar with a quick name or description above them and their levels. Orochimaru didn't have a red or blue bar and instead had a single purple bar. Looking around, the snake Sannin wasn't the only one with an irregularity in that regard. Shino also lacked a blue bar, but save for that, everyone was normal.

"What is it?" Shikamaru asked.

"I can see everyone's health and… that's chakra, right? The blue bar? How did you make this?" he asked.

Orochimaru grinned. "You don't have enough time for that. Sasuke went in that direction," Orochimaru pointed in the exact opposite direction of where the line of destroyed trees went, "he left about 18 hours ago. He was booking it, but I'm sure your group can go faster."

Naruto was busy handing out the contacts and sunglasses to everyone as Orochimaru was talking. "But wait… why are you helping us? You're a sworn enemy of Konoha. We were ordered to kill you if we could."

Orochimaru shrugged. "I just want to see something interesting. Now, I'm taking my leave." The snake slithered back underground as soon as he was done talking. Naruto could have stopped him easily, but he didn't. It would take too long to deal with him.

"Everybody ready?" Naruto asked, looking to Kiba and Hana. "You got the trail?"

"Umm, hold on a sec," Hana said as she jumped off to where Orochimaru pointed with Kiba running after her.

"You needn't worry," Shino said from behind Naruto "I have some of my trackers in Orochimaru's system. He's not near us anymore."

"Where's he going?"

Shino paused and thought for a second. "It would appear… Konoha."

"Ahh, shit."

"I don't detect any hostility from him. I'm sure Konoha will be safe. And even if he does mean harm, Fu will stop him before he can hurt anybody."

Naruto eyed Shino appraisingly. "I never actually asked Fu how powerful she was. You two seem close. You have an idea, right?"

Shino paused again in thought. "Fu doesn't anger easily as I'm sure you're aware. But when she does, no one with be safe from her wrath."

Naruto whistled. "That much?"

Shino nodded.

"Then it looks like Konoha's in good han-"

"No way!" Shikamaru shouted excitedly. It wasn't really the loudness of the tone that drew Naruto's attention to the lazy Nara and more the fact that he seemed to actually very happy and surprised, something that was a rare occurrence outside of him talking about worldly finance.

"What's happening?" Naruto asked, walking over to him. There was a medium sized box in front of Shikamaru that had sorts of strange statistics on them. He could make out _Desiccated Secret base and Surrounding Forestry: $12,000,000 _before Shikamaru excitedly pushed the affirmative button and it blinked out of existence.

"These contacts can see more than just health and chakra. There are also other secrets in this world that are revealed by them. Things like being able to buy places that you or a team member destroyed or liberated. We can do so much good with this! And that's only what I just now found. There could be any number of other things we could find out using these contacts."

Naruto patted Shikamaru on the back a few times. "There there buddy. We'll collect all the secrets. I promise, we'll do it. First, we just have to drag Sasuke back, then I promise, we'll go right out to expose the mysteries of the universe."

Shikamaru Tch'd. "Don't speak to me like I'm a child who just got a new toy."

Naruto continued to pat him on the back. "I'm not, I promise. Though to be perfectly clear, you absolutely are."

Before Shikamaru had time to refute Naruto's statement, Kiba and Hana loudly called everyone to their proverbial tails as they took off with their companions to where Sasuke had run off in the direction of.

Naruto smiled and chased after them. Everything was going to go back to normal soon.

00000000

Madara looked at the assemblage of unconscious Jinchuuriki with unrestrained glee. The Yonbi Jinchuuriki, oldest of the alive Jinchuuriki and arguably the most powerful. The Gobi Jinchuuriki, despite his significant hulk and body armor, considered simultaneously to be one of the fastest and strongest people alive with a heavy repertoire of cunning moves up his sleeves. The Rokubi Jinchuuriki, estranged from his homeland and while not the strongest opponent, probably one of the slipperiest. Madara still didn't know how Obito managed to beat him to submission.

Turning his eyes away from the Jinchuuriki and to Nagato, who was staring at him with an intensity that Madara doubted even he knew of. "You have something to say?"

Nagato eyed him some more with that detestable squint of his. "What is your goal?" Nagato said slowly.

Madara shrugged. "Same as yours, I suppose. Why else would we both be here?"

Nagato shook his head and hid his eyes under his bangs, giving him an ominous look. "I should rephrase that. Why do you have your goal? For what are you doing this?"

He went into his spiel like a well-oiled machine. He'd obviously practiced it often. "The world is too mired in the concept of winning and losing. We sit on a bed of ideals about peace and happiness for all and yet we fight war after war, sowing hatred and loss in the fields of the world only to be surprised when they bear fruit. I've come to realize that this give and take is an integral part of what makes humans, humans. So I'll create a world where there is no war and where everyone actually can be happy. A world that peace will rule over. That's what you want, right? A world of peace?"

Nagato shook his head again. "I'm not quite so pessimistic as you. I truly believe that humanity is capable of wishing for and attaining peace. It's just that the ones on top have to know what it's like to be on the bottom for that to happen. When everyone know what pain, true pain, feels like, that's when I believe they'll all come together for peace."

"And what will you do when they forget that pain? When their sons and daughters take up the blades that their parents left behind, forgotten in the mud? There will be war again."

"No. I will be there forever. A god who can guide the people towards what they need."

"And what if what they need isn't what they want? You're no god. You're man. They will raise their weapons against you and depose of you, then claim what they want."

"And your plan is better? Create a false reality where nothing is gained?"

Madara smirked at Nagato. Talking with him was actually kind of fun. "And how can you be sure that we aren't already under the illusion?"

"…I don't understand."

"It's really rather simple. How can you be certain that we aren't under the illusion of, let's say, and evil demon. This evil demon has complete omniscience and control over what you see and experience. How can you prove that this life isn't created by him?"

Nagato fell silent as he pondered this question. Madara didn't say anything while he did so.

"We… couldn't," Nagato finally said.

"Exactly. How can you say that this life will be worth less that the next life? If we think it's reality and it feels and acts like reality, then for all intents and purposes, it is reality."

Nagato pursed his lips. "I still believe that your way of doing things is too drastic."

"It's what Obi-, Sorry. It's what Tobi thought was for the best. I trust his judgement. You should too."

Anything Nagato was about to say was interrupted by Obito appearing out of thin air with a child slung over his shoulders. "I apologize for the delay," he said as he lay the child down next to the other three. "The Sanbi had already regenerated and I was forced to perform and impromptu sealing. Shall I give the signal for the teams to begin their phase of the plans?"

"Give it in a few hours," Madara ordered, getting up from his cross legged position. "I want a head start on the sealing. With all our combined powers, it will still take about a day to seal away four of the Jinchuuriki."

Obito fidgeted uncomfortably. "But… master. Don't you have complete control over the Gedo-"

"I want to save my eyesight for when our part is to play. Now then, let's start."

00000000

8 hours later

"**I don't like this, kit."**

'So you actually are still in there. I was beginning to think that you disappeared."

"**You wish."**

'Don't get fatalistic on me. What don't you like?'

"**Couldn't tell you even if I wanted to. Just a feeling."**

'Well good. I thought you were about to lecture me on my choice to save Sasuke.'

"**I don't give a flying fuck about what happens to you or your friends. We're in a symbiotic relationship now, remember? That just means that we only have to care enough about each other to know that the other is doing their best not to get our collective selves killed."**

'I haven't forgotten. I still think that somewhere in that big lug heart of yours is a secret affection towards me, but that doesn't matter now. If you're not going to tell me what's bothering you, then why bring it up?'

"**I don't know? Think of it as a warning if you will. Be on your guard and all that."**

'Well, thanks I guess. I'll be on the lookout for anything that might make a giant fox demon quiver in its fur.'

Naruto stopped listening to the large fox sealed in his gut when he felt two strange chakra signatures a few kilometers away from where they were heading to. Signaling the group to stop, Naruto quickly informed everyone of what he sensed and deferred to his sense of chakra rather than the Inuzuka's sense of smell. They all got into battle formation and headed to where the signature was. As they drew closer, he realized that what he thought was just one huge chakra signature was actually two large ones very close together, almost like they were hugging.

When they came into view of who it was, Naruto expanded his sensory range out as far is could go, just to make sure there were no tricks afoot. Hoping that they hadn't been noticed yet, Naruto signaled everyone silently that he was to go alone and scout out the situation with them as backup should anything go wrong.

Pulling gloves on and buttoning up his trench coat with the hood laying low on his face, Naruto layered on his invisibility jutsu and went forward, clinging to the grass without making a sound as he approached the two.

It was a plateau-like hill surrounded on all sides by waves of tall green grass growing up to the hip that Kisame and his sword, Samehada, was guarding. It was a suspicious sight to be sure, but where shark men were, Uchihas tended to be near; specifically, clan murdering Uchihas. And where clan murdering Uchihas were, avenging Uchihas tended to be near.

As Naruto drew closer, his confusion only grew greater. Kisame wasn't even doing anything. He was just standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, looking over the waves of rolling grass with no discernable expression on his face.

_Sealing Mastery Mutation (Sneak Seal): By completely mastering the use of sealing instruments, you may now unseal items without any sounds or puffs of smoke. Although this takes twice the chakra to do so, it is a must have skill for anyone who wishes to take sneakery to the next level_

Naruto unsealed his staff, now collapsed into a manageable stick and hidden underneath his robe, and snuck his way to the shark man in question. Everything related to the senses, sight, smell, hearing, and even taste is muffled by his cloak. It was an item he made by combining elements from only the best of fibers spun into only the best thread, knit without imperfection into textiles and finally formed by Naruto by adding seals aplenty to give it its trademark invisibility. It wouldn't last being repeatedly punctured, but that didn't factor in when no one could sense him behind them in either a physical or spiritual way.

By the time Naruto was almost within striking distance, hoping to end their confrontation with the blunt end of his staff and question him for information later, Kisame had swiveled his head to Naruto and stared him directly in the eyes. For all his worth as an unshakeable ninja captain, Naruto froze more out of shock than anything else. No one could sense him as he was and no one ever had, not even the Inuzuka siblings. To stare a man more beast than human in the eyes while under the guise that he was perfectly undetectable got him to pause for two seconds.

If those two seconds had passed without either one making a move, Naruto would have turned Kisame's head into a fine paste by shocked reflex. Luckily for both of them, Kisame raised a hand and greeted Naruto with a smile.

"Hey, I know you're there. Come on out. Don't worry, I don't bite… well…"

Naruto straightened up and undid the invisibility on his cloak. His body was tense and about to spring into action at a moment's notice. Naruto didn't trust him, but did take solace in the fact that he at least didn't seem to have fanatical ideals. In his experience, fanatics were just about the worst kinds of people to deal with.

Kisame laughed at seeing how tense Naruto was. "Hahaha. Kid, you really need to loosen up. You look like you're about to implode."

"W-Why… are _you_ here?" Naruto asked, berating himself for stuttering. He wasn't nervous. It was just hard to form questions when in a situation you never thought you'd be in.

Kisame shrugged and glanced back at the mountain behind him. "I'm on guard duty. You know, I gotta say kid, that cloak was really cool. Sure, it's ineffective against me, but cool nonetheless."

"How does it not work on you? It completely hides my scent, my chakra signature, muffles my movements… no one should be able to know that I exist when I put it on."

Kisame looked genuinely amused by Naruto's confusion. "Your cloak of invisibility doesn't hide your scent, it neutralizes it. Imagine smelling something that just doesn't have a smell. If everything you're looking at has a smell, then the one thing that does not have one, well, then it becomes pretty obvious that something foul's going on. You become easy to detect because by putting on that cloak, you turn into a blob of nothingness on a picture of everythingness."

"Well… shit."

"Ah, well, it really only works for me though. Part shark and everything. My senses are a lot better than the best of even the Inuzuka clan."

"I guess there's that, then," Naruto said, dropping his guard for a second.

_Lying Mutation (Lie detector): Under no circumstances will anyone in the world be capable of hiding their truth behind lies. You are able to detect when someone is lying and what their true disposition is._

Naruto did the signal for everyone to move up. As he waited for them to catch up, he looked behind Kisame at the mountain for anything that might denote why he was guarding it.

"Curious?" he asked.

Naruto nodded.

Kisame chuckled a little bit. "Don't really know to be perfectly honest. One second we're on our mission to drown Iwagakure, the next we've got a snake in between us talking about global conspiracies. It went over my head, but Itachi took that shit to heart and abandoned the mission right then and there. We came here and Itachi told me to wait outside, something about needing to work something out with his brother.

Naruto's eyes widened. "So, Sasuke and Itachi are in… there?" Naruto asked while pointing.

Kisame nodded. "Why? Got business? Sorry, but I'm on guard duty. Can't let you interrupt them. You know how it goes."

Kashikoi was the first to get there and paused, shocked that she was meeting he guy she ate the throat of a few years ago once more.

"Kashi," Naruto said, tossing his staff to the large fox "take care of him. Guard duty or not, I'm going up there."

The staff enlarged and expanded at a rapid pace. When it hit the fox, it unfolded and completely encircled the fox, clicking its parts together and shifting all around until she was encased in a golden colored power armor.

Kisame detached Samehada from his back and planted one step behind him, eyes wide from the strange and menacing sight before him. "Nice foxie, nice f-"

Kashikoi launched herself at him with all the power of industrial pistons. Her impact with his sternum would have powdered his bones and evaporated all the blood in his body were it not for the fact that he got Samehada in between him and her right before contact. A few of his blade's sharp scales skittered away and got lodged up to base in rocks and trees and he was spun around a few times, eventually planting Samehada in the ground in order to keep still.

The shark man glanced behind him to see Naruto racing up the mountain at a feverish pace, but wasn't able to keep his gaze away from the mechanized vulpine for very long. She ran around him and breathed fire on the ground, catching it in the long grass and sending a circular blaze up and around the shark man. A piece of her back armor expanded and lifted up, sucking in and blowing out the air behind her right into the flame, whipping it up into a fire tornado.

The circle of destruction didn't last for very long, however, as a geyser of water erupted from the middle and quickly overtook the blazing inferno, sending boiling hot water crashing down everywhere within a fifty meter radius. A good portion of it landed on Kashikoi, but the suit protected her from any real harm.

Kisame shot out of the steamy mini-swamp and swung Samehada overhead and to the ground at Kashikoi, like he was swinging at a golf ball. It hit her in the side and sent her on a wide arc into the grass, nearly hitting Ino, who had been following the rest of the team and like them, was trying to escape notice from the shark person. Her yelp of surprise gave her away and with as much wits as she could muster, booked it to the small mountain Naruto was now half way up.

Seeing Ino go into full on sprint mode, everyone else shot up from the grass and ran, putting their trust in a three year old fox to keep a tower of man eating muscle away from them.

"Ah, shit," Kisame groused. There was no way he was going to manage to keep them out of Itachi's and his brother's fight with so many high ranking ninja racing towards their location.

Kashikoi launched out of the long grass and was aiming to rip his throat out for a second time with her new and improved mechanized chainsaw teeth. She wasn't going to for high impact this time and as such, when Kisame just barely got Samehada in between them, she didn't fly off from the ricochet effect and instead latched on with metal hooks extending from her paws.

Flames erupted from her jaws again as she peered around the edge of the flaying machine, searing all the flesh on his right side. He gasped in pain and swung Samehada to the ground, trying to crush Kashikoi under its weight. Her paws unlatched at the last second and she jumped off, her muzzle aiming for his left leg.

Kisame screamed in pain as his leg started to get mouth chainsawed off right below the knee. His hands flew in a flurry and ended up with his cheeks puffing up with pressurized water. The liquid bullets hit her square in the face multiple times in the time span of a second. It dented her head armor in a few uncomfortable ways and made her careen off back into the long grass, his lower leg firmly lodged in her jaws.

She shook her head to get rid of the cobwebs and slowly walked forward to get a good look at him. He was still on the ground and gritting his teeth as he held onto the stump of his leg. To her great surprise, his health hadn't gone down all that much. About an eighth of it was missing along with small text above the red line that read _left leg: crippled_.

Kashikoi watched with rapt, fascinated eyes as Samehada inchwormed its way to Kisame's side and fused into him. The two pairs of red and blue lines became one as Kisame's appearance changed to that of a bipedal shark's. He got up slowly and glared at Kashikoi despite her being concealed by the grass. His eyes shifted from her and towards the mountain. The Uzumaki had gotten all the way up and his teammates weren't that far behind.

In short, he'd failed. He'd failed and there wasn't even anything in his repertoire of sick ninja moves to even hinder them a little bit. Nor had he failed in any particularly climactic or cool looking way.

He huffed out annoyance and turned his attention back to the fox. "What is that you guys want, anyway?"

A sort of british sounding male synthesized voice came from the brush. "My partner just wants to bring his friend back home."

"And that little friend of his is the Uchiha? The younger one?"

"Yes."

Kisame barked out laughter from deep in his stomach. "Might be a little late on that one. That kid's too far gone."

"What do you mean by that?"

"His brain's FUBAR. You hear me? Fucked Up Beyond All Repair. He's crazy."

Kashikoi hadn't known Sasuke very well back when they were at the village. But the only impression she had of him was that he was just a broody teenager with a stick up his ass. Hardly the only one to come to existence and hardly the last one either. Hearing that he'd gone crazy during their training away didn't make her worry for him, though. It made her worry for Naruto. She'd heard him talk about Sasuke. If she were completely honest, Naruto talked about him like he was his brother. She didn't want to think about what might happen should worse come to worse.

"How crazy are we talkin 'bout here?"

"I don't know. Is there a scale? Detached from reality. Maniacal. Talking to himself a little bit. Didn't really seem to know what was happening around him. You know, crazy. Anyway, I thought you were a vixen. Did you get your balls cut off? I can almost forgive you for my throat and leg now," Kisame said in reference to the male synthesized voice that was programmed into V-chan.

Kashikoi tentatively walked out of the long grass and sat down in front of the fused shark man. "It's part of the suit functionality. I can't talk to humans yet, so I use this."

Kisame clicked his tongue and sat down on his ass, looking up at the mountain.

Kashikoi walked next to him and admired the same view. She still didn't trust him, so she kept the suit on, but could also sense there was no hostility coming from him. There were flashes of fire and lightning coming every now and then from the top of the mountain, sending boulders and dust crashing down the side. "So, why do you follow Itachi? I heard he was crazy. That he killed his entire clan. I can't imagine he'd be too charismatic a leader."

Kisame ripped out a piece of grass on the ground and started playing with it. "Ahh… it'd take too long to explain. I just trust him. And I'm not one who trusts easily."

"Is he gonna to die?"

Kisame shrugged. "Maybe. Probably."

"Are you gonna to stop him."

He shook his head. "No… no, I'm not going to stop him. He knew that he was going to die. I could hear it in his voice."

"Isn't it a friend's job to stop another friend from dying?"

"I wouldn't call us friends. And I'm not cruel enough to try to keep a man from his last wish."

"How can you be sure he's gonna to die? Not as strong as he's made out to be?"

"He's got a terminal illness. Not much time left."

"Ah."

For a period of time, the two of them just sat there and watched what was arcing out the top of the mountain. Blue fire. Strange beams of light that made everything look neon. Long purple chains.

"…You worried about your partner?" Kisame asked, breaking the silence.

"Not really. He's strong."

"Think we should check on them?"

Kashikoi's eyes widened in surprise. Thinking quickly, she sunk her teeth into the soft flesh of his newly made leg.

Just as he yelped in pain and surprise, they vanished.

00000000

Sasuke was breathing heavily, nearly doubled over from the pain of almost getting his torso smashed inwards. One of his eyes was puffed over and closed because the gash on his forehead was leaking too much blood into it. His left leg protested to being moved because of the burn all along his thigh, exposing muscle and even a little bit of bone; even so, he hobbled forward.

What started out as a sort of hideout inside a small hill quickly turned into a collapsed mound once their ninjutsus started to really get going. The ground swarmed with snakes from one of his summons, but left two spots conspicuously alone: the ground around Sasuke and the pillar where Itachi was leaning against, leaking blood from puncture wounds all over his body.

Then Sasuke laughed.

A deep chortling laughter that was strained against his traumatized lungs. He almost passed out from it because of the lack of air reaching his body, but managed to go operate on sheer willpower alone.

Every trudging step he made to Itachi, his happiness grew. Actually, it shouldn't be called happiness. He considered happiness to be a foreign concept from an age far gone to him. What he was feeling wasn't happiness or even any positive emotion for that matter. It was just… there. It was the indescribable feeling that something one had obsessed over for so long was finally becoming theirs.

The top six inches of his chokuto had been broken off, but that was good enough for him to use it as an impromptu walking cane. It left deep gouges in the ground whenever it rested.

Finally, when Sasuke was in front of his accursed brother, trying to gain the footing to strike one last time, he said, words dripping in contempt "any last words before I take your eyes, brother?"

Itachi blearily looked up with clouded, unseeing eyes. There was a smile on his face. Not the sort of manic, depraved smile that Sasuke had plastered on his face ever since he moved out of Orochimaru's compound. No, it was a smile of content. "A few, I suppose," he said lightly, blood frothing slightly at the corners of his mouth.

Sasuke rested the tip of his broken sword against his brother's neck, glaring at him with an expression that clearly said 'Hurry the fuck up.'

Itachi's grin faded as he looked to the ground. "I… didn't have many options, if you could believe me. I acted on what I thought was the best for Konoha and for you. It's not perfect because nothing ever is, but I truly do love Konoha. I just wish that you could have loved it the same as me."

Sasuke didn't understand what he was saying. All his life, he'd been fed the tale of his brother being a rogue element that despised Konoha to the point of destroying one of their most prized families, his own family, by testing his might on them. It was by Itachi's words that stayed Sasuke's hand, if for only a slight bit longer.

"Tell me, little brother, do you have someone that you cherish?"

Sasuke said nothing. A brief image of his idiotic teammate surrounded by all the genin of Konoha 12 with all their jonin-sensei and all the people who showed him kindness briefly flickered in his mind, but he squashed that image down as quickly as it came up.

"Well, you must have if you have those eyes. We Uchiha carry with us the curse of hatred. I personally think that it was meant for goodness. Witnessing someone you love dying sparking a hidden, latent power. It's obvious to me that the power we Uchiha gain is the power to protect and cherish those around us with that newfound power, so that we don't feel that anguish again. Some don't break away from that hatred. I don't want you to be like one of tho-" he interrupted himself by coughing a new flow of blood from within him.

"Where do you get off on saying those things? YOU KILLED OUR ENTIRE FAMILY!"

Itachi's head bobbed up and down a few times, what he tried to pass off as nodding. All the power left he had was used in bringing his head up to face Sasuke's. "I had to. Our entire family was conspiring to start a coup d'état. It would have ended with so many more dead. I didn't leave you alive so I could test my metal against you. I left you alive… because I love you."

Those words struck Sasuke deep to the core. He froze. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to say. What he did know was that his conviction was too far embedded in him and that to turn away now was completely unacceptable to all the things he threw away to reach his goal.

His face scrunched up in fury. He jerked his arm to the side, severing his brother's throat and sending congealed blood splattering into the bed of snakes next to his brother.

Sasuke fell to his knees and cried. Large globules of tears fell to the ground and Itachi's stained black trousers. His anguished shouts of pain, both physical and emotional, could be heard everywhere across the ruined grounds he was in.

His eyes started burning with pain. It wasn't too bad, not in comparison to what he'd felt before, and even felt a little bit familiar.

His hand numbly went to his hip pouch, which was miraculously untouched by the battle, and took out his bastardized guidebook. Opening it to the only decipherable page on it, he was greeted with the words:

_New Perk: Eternal Mangenkyou Sharingan_

_By avenging you clan and murdering you brother in cold blood, you have gained the ability to use your Mangenkyou Sharingan without running the risk of blindness. Abilities are enhanced and side effects are nullified._

_That's it._

_That's all you've accomplished._

_Feel proud of yourself now?_

_Feel good about what you did to get here?_

_Well you shouldn't._

Feeling disgusted by the guidebook in his hands, he threw it away amidst the rolling piles of snakes. He knew it would return to him sooner or later, but didn't care.

The sound of crunching stones and the hiss of snakes being tossed aside came a ways behind him. With it came an exasperated voice that didn't really like dealing with snakes. Sasuke turned around slowly, face still disfigured by his pained expression.

Naruto's eyes lit up upon seeing his brother figure. He rushed towards Sasuke, uncaring of the debris and furious snakes, with a grand smile on his face. "Sasuke!" he yelled happily. The Uzumaki kept his pace until he could see the expression on the Uchiha's face, wracked with grief and anger, where he slowed and allowed his expression to turn downwards.

Sasuke didn't say anything as he stood up and turned to his best friend. "Leave me alone," he warbled out, voice cracked and fluctuating pitifully.

Naruto walked forward, undaunted, and extended his hand. He honestly didn't know what it was for. For all he knew, it could have been to shake hands, or support him, or to bring him into a bro hug, and possibly even to knock his head back into place. Whatever it was for, he never got to find out. Once he was within reach, Sasuke flung his chokuto in a wide arc, opening a small gash on the outstretched hand of one of Naruto's fingers. If Sasuke hadn't forgotten about the loss of reach with the sword, he would have taken the entire hand off.

Seeing the blood drip from his fingers made him stop in his tracks. His concerned eyes met Sasuke's for the first time in a long time. He didn't see the eyes of an individual with cognizance and human understanding. He saw the eyes of a child just a few seconds away from throwing a temper tantrum. He likely wouldn't listen to reason or logic, instead offering only his rolling emotions as a response.

"C-Come Sasuke, we can talk," Naruto said feebly.

Sasuke shook his head. "No. We can't. I just- I want to be alone now. Just leave or I'll kill you."

The threat to his life didn't faze Naruto in the slightest. "Look, I came from Konoha. I spoke to granny. She says that if you come willingly, then she'll pardon you for anything that you did against Konoha. You can join the roster again. We can be teammates with Sakura and Kakashi. Everything will be back to normal."

Sasuke chuckled darkly. The resemblance of this one sided conversation to the one in his dream was just too surreal. "No, nothing can go back to normal. Everything's changed. Now step back, or I'll kill you."

"Don't say th-" Naruto was interrupted by a giant purple fist impacting him in the chest and sending him flying backwards, cratering one of the walls.

_Earth Chakra Mutation (Stonewall): your bones become ceramified and nearly impossible to break via conventional means. Organs can also now withstand more punishment and higher degrees of movement._

Naruto got up from the wall and brushed the dirt and dust off his jacket. Seeing no use for it anymore, he shrugged it off and repositioned his samurai kimono a little bit to make it more comfortable to walk in.

_Enhanced Samurai Garb: originally an ancient outfit from the most venerated order of fighters in the elemental kingdom, these clothes have been reinforced and brought into new usefulness. +50 speed, +20 strength, +200 kenjutsu: versatility._

"Well then!" he shouted to Sasuke, who was now enshrined with the purple armor of Susanoo, "I guess I'm dragging you back to Konoha!"

He took a scroll of inside of his kimono and unsealed its contents.

_Kiba, the twin lightning blades: gained from defeated Raiga Kurosaki in one on one combat, these swords' ability to channel lightning is unmatched by any other metal of any other blade. They are classified as one of the seven ninja swordsmen's weapons. A truly legendary story in the making._

_Lightning Chakra Mutation (Jitterbug): lightning now passes through your body without doing any damage. Be careful though, this only applies to its charge. You can still be pierced by lightning jutsu if that is its primary function, though it will be lessened in most cases._

The red part of Sasuke's bar was decreased to a little less than half, but there was another bar running directly behind it that was full to the brim colored purple. His chakra bar too, which was significantly lower than his health, got the same treatment. However, the purple was slowly lowering at a fixed rate while the red and blue did not.

Lightning arced in between the tips of the two blades menacingly. He held the right one straight in front of him and pointed it at Sasuke. Immediately, an arc of lighting bounced through the air and hit his avatar square in the chest. The red bar didn't lower, but the purple did, if only a fraction.

While Naruto was still trying to figure out the purple bar, Sasuke's avatar had spawned a bow and loosed an arrow his direction. Naruto crossed the twin blades over his chest and batted the arrow away, sending it skittering off to the side. Then he did the same to the second arrow. Then the third.

Deciding he'd had enough of that game, Naruto instead ducked under the fourth and threw one of the Kiba blades in a lazy arc across the battle field at Sasuke. Before the Uchiha could shoot it down, Naruto teleported to the seal that was inscribed on its handle and clanged both the swords together, creating a web of electricity between the blades.

The avatar's other arm spawned a buckler and used it to swing at Naruto. The collision between the shield the size of a shack and the two electricity swords created a deafening crack and a blinding flash supercharged with lighting. If he were a normal human, Naruto would have been hit to the moon to meet a rather irate Ootsuki. As it was, he got forced back about ten yards away from the avatar and resealed the Kiba back into a scroll.

'Okay, time for the big guns,' Naruto thought not only to himself, but also to the fox in his gut.

"**So be it."**

An orange chakra shroud appeared all around Naruto, giving a sort of spiritual look.

_Jinchuuriki Jutsu Control Mutation (At Peace): You may call upon the complete shroud of Kurama in an instant with absolutely no mental fatigue or other negative side effects. There is no need to unlock your tailed beast with this mutation._

_Jinchuuriki Jutsu Shape Manipulation Mutation (Doppler): The wall between your physical body and your tailed beast chakra is lost. You may contort your body in any which way with this mutation when enshrouded with your beast._

Around his arms grew purplish looking chakra chains. Each had links about as thick as a normal person's forearms and was replete with spikes all along the sides.

_Perk: Chakra Chains: with the blood of the Uzumaki coursing through your veins, you now have the power to use one of their signature moves, the chakra chains, known to even be able to restrain the strongest forces of nature in the world, the tailed beasts._

The chains were coiled up and around his arms reaching up to his shoulders. In his hands, their length stopped at about six feet. Twirling them around his head with such practiced ease and speed, Naruto threw his right arm forward and with the added momentum, it flew at unexpected speeds towards the purple titan, expanding all the way.

Sasuke tried to block it with an arm, but the chain hit the side and wrapped around it, getting thoroughly tangled up in the process. Getting an idea, Sasuke gripped the chain with his unrestrained arm and pulled as hard as he could.

Smiling, Naruto accepted this and flew towards Sasuke, the other chain trailing behind him. Once he was near, Sasuke brought the arm that the chain was coiled around down on Naruto, but wasn't able to as Naruto moved just out of reach with the help of his beast cloak. Flinging his other arm around, Naruto got the second chain coiled around Sasuke's free arm and landed with a heavy thud a ways behind him.

Sasuke turned around and made to yank Naruto forwards again, but Naruto already started to reel himself in at a rapid pace. Naruto coiled his body into a ball with two arms sticking out, still attached to the chains, practically turning himself into a human bullet.

Once the speed was great enough and the aim exactly where he wanted to be, Naruto let the chains fizzle out of existence and tucked himself fully into a ball. Traveling at Mach speed, Sasuke couldn't move in time as his titan's face was hit by one of the fastest flying straight kicks in the history of flying straight kicks.

The impact was so great that Naruto went completely through the head and went flying out, having to anchor himself to the ground using giant hands sprung from his back cloak. Looking at the bars above Sasuke's head, he could see that the purple in the health bar section was steadily at half, possibly a tinge higher, whereas the purple in the chakra section was barely touched.

'Ohh, so the purple represents Susanoo. Good to know,' Naruto thought, storing that particular tidbit of information for later use.

"JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!" Sasuke wailed through the still air so loudly that it penetrated the thick substance of Susanoo and caused Naruto to stagger back slightly from the severity present in Sasuke's tone.

The large purple being began to destabilize and find its home back in Sasuke's body, but reignited with an intensity when it was almost gone. It grew to easily twice the size of the Susanoo before it and them some. Clad in a glowing purple old fashioned samurai armor and mask coming together from pieces fitting together like a robot were assembling it on his face, Sasuke leveled his newly made sword at Naruto's diminutive form.

A sort of beam blasted from the tip of the weapon and hit Naruto square in the torso. It carved him into the ground, sliding him across the battlefield and finally into a thick beam, where he leaned, dazed.

Naruto's hand felt the familiar slickness of thick blood. But that wasn't supposed to happen. He didn't bleed in Kyuubi Mode. Turning his head, he was shocked to see the dead and nearly untouched body of Itachi.

Shaking his head out of such useless observations, Naruto skirted away just before the next beam hit and managed to avoid getting sent for another ride.

_Fire Chakra Mutation: The very essence of fire shall be bent to your will and your will alone. The consumption of chakra when using fire chakra is lowered to the point of near nonexistence and you can even manipulate enemy fire jutsus away with nothing but the want to do so._

Naruto unsealed two more of his more vaunted possessions: two circular dishes about half the size of a man that were clipped to either of his forearms. They were basically just two really big shields, but the thing that made them special was the fact that they were composed solely of chakra metal.

He flowed Kyuubi chakra into the shields, making them flare up with a spiritual aura. Then he made the Kyuubi chakra ignite into fire and coalesce inwards, becoming more and more dense until the shields merely shimmered slightly with the barely contained might of Kyuubi fire.

Sasuke's Susanoo form took a mighty step forward and swung his gargantuan blade in a sweeping motion at Naruto. Just when he was about to be sliced in two, Naruto ducked quickly and whacked the flat of the blade with one of his shields, releasing an explosion that sent the blade skewering upwards and throwing the giant off balance.

Naruto ran forward, brandishing his shields in front of him with the aim of ripping Sasuke out of his avatar.

He wasn't making it easy for Naruto as another beam of energy emitted from his masked jaws. It was bigger than the one that came from the sword and it carried a power exponentially more lethal.

Naruto stopped, got on one knee, and overlapped the swords over his body, sending roots of Kyuubi chakra into the earth to keep him in place.

The beam hit him like the wrath of God, making him lose ground ever so slowly, ripping up from the ground and eventually getting pushed to a slanted angle. It continued for what felt like hours, surrounding Naruto in an inescapable heat, but what was probably only a few seconds in actuality.

It stopped with a suddenness that Naruto was unprepared for. He peeked out from the safety of his shields for a second, only to get squashed in between the ground, his shields, and the giant samurai sword holding him in place. A whoosh of dust was sent rolling in and out of the crater they were fighting in from the quickness and intensity of Sasuke's Sword hitting Naruto to the ground.

The head began charging up for another beam attack, announced by the glowing becoming more and more pronounced between the cracks in the mask.

Naruto, thinking quickly, slanted either of his shields opposite each other and ignited an explosion from either side. The resulting impact from both shields colliding against the sword in a scissoring motion sent a huge crack racing up the purple metal material, even reaching the top of the sword. With one last push, Naruto fully broke the sword in two and scrambled out of the grip he was put under.

Sasuke, not having expected this eventuality, accidentally stepped forward a few paces to right himself and hastily aimed the head cannon to where Naruto was. Naruto strafed to either side as the beam carved up the earth into a molten slag.

Naruto shot two chains out of either wrists and anchored his body to the part of the torso directly in front of the real body of the mad Uchiha. He reeled himself in faster than he ever had before, both fists extended with the two explosion shields on either of his sides. He ignited them on impact, creating a sonic boom that reverberated across the land for tens of miles around.

What was left of Sasuke's Susanoo's torso armor was an indented crater with a dazed Uchiha trying to get his bearings in the middle. Naruto resealed the shields quickly and grabbed Sasuke out of the hole with a cloak extension, throwing him to the ground with a little bit more force than was warranted for what the situation called for.

Naruto too, fell to the ground and dispelled the cloak at the same time the Susanoo construct began to disappear.

Looking at Sasuke as he tried to regain his breath, Naruto stumbled forward and started up his medical chakra

_Medical Jutsu: Learning Rate Mutation (Medical Genius): You just understand how medical chakra works on a fundamental level. All medical jutsu learning now comes to you easily._

_Medic Jutsu: Ability Mutation (Benevolent Hand of God): All but the most fatal of injuries are healed in seconds. The speed of recovery, however, depends on how much chakra you wish to expend._

Naruto got to healing Sasuke's wounds, slowly bringing his red HP bar up to a manageable level. Sasuke cracked an eye open as he watched his former teammate get to work.

"Why do you care so much?" Sasuke asked dejectedly.

"Because you're my friend and brother. I'm not giving up on you so easily as that."

Sasuke chuckled darkly. "You're so simple."

"And you're a fucking dumbass."

"Yeah, I guess so."

Naruto continued to work on his wounds in a strained silence. It was only a matter of time before he wouldn't be able to take any more of that shitty silence and finally asked "you feel happy now?"

"…Hm?"

"Do you feel happy now? You killed Itachi, avenged your clan, yadda yadda yadda. Do you feel happy now?"

Sasuke pursed his lips. "Nope. I don't feel happy at all."

"Yeah, well, that's what can be expected from revenge."

"What would you have done then? Was I just supposed to forgive him like a hapless moron and try to find happiness?" Sasuke asked with derision. He said 'happiness' like one would say 'that puddle of seminal fluids over there'.

"Sometimes it's not about forgiving or not forgiving. Sometimes it's just about living differently. You didn't have to forgive him. You didn't have to throw everything away in order to kill him either."

Sasuke sighed and laid his head down, looking at the blue sky beginning to darken with oranges and pinks of the evening.

The rest of Team Naruto, who had been hiding at the lip of the crater, trickled in.

"Hey guys, where were you?" Naruto asked. "Scared of getting wrapped up in the fight?"

"I wish," Hana said gruffly "Mr. Money Millions here wouldn't let us. Said you had to work things out on your own."

Shikamaru had at least the decency required to look to the side ashamedly.

"You going to do something stupid?" Naruto asked Sasuke.

He shook his head. "No. I need to… I need to have a chat with Tsunade about some… things, though."

Naruto stopped his healing and looked him dead in the eye unamused. "Why do I get the feeling that you want to ask those questions from the tip of a sword?"

Sasuke scrunched his nose up and down distastefully. "It's something Itachi said… before I killed him. If things don't go right with our talk, I don't know what I'll do."

Naruto gazed at him for a while, sizing up his true intentions to his stated ones. He wasn't lying at least. That was a start.

"Well, if you do anything stupid, I'll just beat you down again," Naruto assented.

"I was half dead by the time we started fighting. Don't get uppity."

"And I only used half my power."

"Bullshit."

Naruto shrugged. "Believe what you will." Getting up, Naruto extended a hand to the downed Uchiha, health bar now completely full from Naruto's handiwork. Sasuke looked at the hand like it were a foreign object for a few seconds before tentatively reaching out his own and taking Naruto's proffered appendage.

Next, Naruto signaled the seal he placed on V-chan and waited a few seconds to teleport his tool of choice along with the fox he was partnered with to him. What appeared when he did so was not what he was expecting.

Everyone of their right mind brandished their own weapon of choice at the shark man held by the leg by Kashikoi who appeared with her. Kashikoi released and barked a few quips at Naruto, who ordered everyone to lower their weapons. "Don't worry guys, he's cool… apparently."

"Cool?" Ino asked, shaking her head "Nope, not cool. Not cool at all."

Kisame mostly ignored their various states of alarm and hissed out in annoyance as Kashikoi's teeth marks closed. He got up with little difficulty and looked around until he spotted Itachi's body. Watching him go and inspect said body, everyone remained silent and with baited breath, waiting to see where his alliances went. He collected every odd scroll that Itachi had on his body and skimmed through them all before tossing them behind his back carelessly.

Eventually, he stopped this pursuit and walked back to Team Naruto. "You Naruto?" the Hoshigaki asked.

Naruto nodded slowly, still sizing him up for a fight.

Samehada extracted itself from Kisame's body, reverting him to his… normal shape. If that could even be called normal.

"Itachi seemed to have a lot of faith in you. Think Konoha would be willing to pardon a member of Akatsuki?"

Naruto shrugged. "I don't know, maybe."

Shikamaru edged his way to Naruto. "I'm not sure if that's the best idea," he whispered in Naruto's ear.

"He seems trustworthy enough," Naruto said simply, expecting that to end the conversation.

Although Shikamaru wanted the leader of their group to think about his choice a little bit more, he was interrupted by Shino who remarked "I think we have to get back to Konoha right now."

As he was mostly silent, the rare times he spoke was enough to stop everyone in their tracks and pay attention to what he said. They all looked at what he was staring at and was left speechless by the red dot in the sky trailing a fiery tail. It looked almost like a comet.

Except everyone could see a tiny little status explanation above the dot reading: _Extinction Meteor_

Naruto felt his pouch buzz with vibrations. Confused at this, Naruto reached in and grabbed his guidebook, the vibrating object in question. This was the first time it ever vibrated.

Naruto flipped through the book and read the blue box that appeared on all the pages of the book, blurring its background. Every single box said the same thing:

_Quest! End Game: stop the machinations of evil_

_Reward for completion: Game Over_

_Consequence for failure: The death of everything_

Everyone who brought their hardware along with them all began to get the same messages that appeared in the same manner. Sasuke even got one.

Everyone silently looked at the meteor and mentally traced its trajectory, all somehow knowing exactly where it was heading.

Konoha.

**AN/ have a gentlemanly day.**


	38. a giant fucking meteor

Chapter 38

"FOR FUCK'S SAKES, WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE SHORE UP THE WEST SIDE DEFENSES!?"

Tsunade's shouting was only just able to heard over the hustle and bustle of an entire village retreating into itself. Although Konoha often ran drills of evacuation should there ever be an invasion, bijuu attack, or in this case, some sort of meteor about to impact Konoha, the fact that everyone could very clearly see the impending doom sent some into spirals of morose despair, and others into believing that there was time enough to collect 'essentials' from their various domiciles before 'final evacuation'. At this point, it was more like herding cats than anything else.

The Fifth Hokage stood on the top of the Kage administration next to her long-time partner, barking orders to the jonin and chunin scrambling about to keep the sensing seal that surrounded the village and surrounding countryside active, the walls around the village manned at full capacity, and even dismantling unneeded structures in the city to be put to use in defending it from harm. This duty wasn't helped by the fact that the sun was beginning to set, making the sky light up in a mosaic of oranges, purples, and pinks. Although it did make for a rather picturesque landscape painting, it also somewhat obscured the meteor, making its descent harder to predict.

She first heard about the so called 'final quest' from Kakashi, who had got the alert when he was coincidentally making a report to her. Soon after, they saw the meteor in the sky and began making preparations to get rid of it. Collecting the science corps, they began doing rapid observations to determine size, trajectory, impact radius, time of approach, anything that might be needed to destroy or send it flying elsewhere.

As it was, Kakashi, Gai, Tsume, Fu, Yamato, and Anko, the remaining members of Team Naruto operating in Konoha, were present next to her should an update or something come up on any of their respective pieces of hardware.

Finally, when there were no longer any jonin or chunin available for ordering around, she turned behind her to address the ones directly associated with the game.

"OKAY!" she said inadvertently a little too loudly. Wincing little, she lowered her voice and addressed those in front of her again. "Okay, that meteor is roughly half a kilometer wide at the radius. It will impact in little more than 15 minutes. If we let that thing land, not only will Konoha be wiped out, but most of the life on this continent will go with it. We're not going to let that happen. Any ideas?"

Kakashi raised his hand. "If I can hit it with enough speed, I could probably split it down the middle. That should at least lower the amount of destruction."

"Good idea. Fu, can you do that?"

"Throw a single human at speeds needed to split a really big meteor down the middle? Sure."

"Okay, that will make the chunks smaller, if you can indeed split it, but they will still be large enough to do too much damage otherwise. If we do it soon, then the science team could estimate new trajectories and times of impacts of the split pieces of the original meteor. How many here can stop a meteor impact?"

Fu raised her hand along with Yamato, though he did have a caveat. "If I'm injected with enough chakra, I may be able to do it."

Tsunade looked at Jiraiya. "What about you?"

Jiraiya rubbed his nonexistent beard for a few seconds. "If I could get Gamabunta and Katsuyu to help, then maybe."

Anko raised her hand. "I've also got Manda, but he'll be pissed if there's no human sacrifice."

Jiraiya shrugged helplessly. "Then let him be pissed. We need all the help we can get right now."

Tsunade nodded. "That's good. We can catch three small meteor impacts this way. I really hope that there isn't any more," she muttered the last bit under her breath. "It looks like we don't have any time to lose! Fu and Kakashi do what you need to do! Yamato, you're with me as soon as we have the new trajectories. Anko, you go with Jiraiya after I summon Katsuyu. Fu, just… try to not die, I guess. Gai, Tsume, beef up the wall defenses."

Given the quest description of having to stop some 'evil force', Tsunade felt fairly confident that the meteor was only the harbinger of what was truly to come.

Everyone shot off to do their own activity while Tsunade set her hand on the top of the roof and summoned Katsuyu. She frowned and looked to the sky at the oncoming meteor. Things didn't feel right.

Nothing felt right at all.

00000000

Sand

Konan looked to the very visible meteor in the sky with a detached, non-emotional look about her face. Without turning to look at it, she brushed her hand against the shoulder of Black Zetsu and pointed to the looming walls of the village hidden in sand. Nothing had to be said because there was only one thing. Only one eventuality. Only one order.

Death and destruction.

Black Zetsu melted into the ground, leaving Konan behind as a solitary figure on the uppermost curve of a sand dune watching the still frame that was Sunagakure. It was a sight that lacked any sort of mobility, so one would be forgiven if they thought that it was actually a painting or a picture. She actually considered that as a fairly fit metaphor for life, now that she thought about it. Life often feels like it's at a standstill where nothing of any consequence can happen. The wind blows. The sand shuffles a little bit. Maybe a scorpion scuttles across the dirt before hiding in its own little burrow. It doesn't matter what one does to try and change that lone picture, because everything will revert to the law of nature before long.

And in a frightening burst of activity, a white wall of encroaching death rose from the ground and covered everything with its uncaring carnage. The walls were easily climbed up, over, then fallen to the middle of by the White Zetsu. No one put up a suitable defense except for perhaps one or two explosion users, but they too were overwhelmed by the tide of force. Civilians were massacred and shinobi were cut down like so many rotten stalks of wheat, not that Konan could physically see it.

Maybe 10 seconds is all it took for two waves of sand and gold respectively to ominously rise from the middle of the village, heralding the arrival of Gaara and his father, but by that time, Sunagakure is already writ to a fate of destruction and calamity.

Konan sighed under the weight of duty and slowly combined her paper on her back to create beautiful, angelic wings. What would people wonder when they saw her, she wondered. Would they think that a being sent from heaven would save them from the sudden and brutal onslaught of white demons? Would they think her simply a curious bird, trying to see what all the fuss was about? Or would think of her as an idealistic mercenary that was sent from her organization to weaken their village's Jinchuuriki so that it could be neatly collected by a time-space ninja?

Probably not.

Yup, that's what life is. Nothing changes.

Until everything does.

00000000

Mist

Sasori and Deidara look at the hustle and bustle of Kirigakure with faded interest. People huddle to and fro from where they want to go. They scurry and walk and run and jump like a swarm of anchovies skirting the houses and fearfully looking from side to side. Every single one of those tiny little motes of life has a different story. Some are long and some are short. Most are at least somewhat interesting with a few dull ones here and there. A few might be tragic and fewer still could very well be downright enviable.

None of that really mattered to the two mercenaries sitting on a small knoll on a mountain that bordered the ninja village. Nor would it have mattered to even the most optimistic and open-hearted people. From that height. At all the tiny little tens of thousands of scurrying little motes. They didn't even count as people. They were simply numbers.

Numbers are easy to hit backspace on.

Deidara silently put his hands into a cross and whispered "Katsu."

It wasn't a theatric display where the outside went up into flames, then the big buildings fell, then everyone had time to understand that they were going to die, then the shinobis started vainly to help out the ones that needed immediate care, then the ground crumbled and the village was finally torn asunder.

Nope, nothing like that.

In one fell drag of a mouse and tap of the delete, all those tiny little motes were gone in an inferno without even a second needing to pass.

00000000

Lightning

Hidan didn't like what he was doing. It was an affront to his lord and savior, the great and powerful Jashin-sama. It was dishonorable and cowardly. If he were to atone for the sins he was about to commit, he'd have to sit in fetal for days on end, covered in the blood of the innocent as he prayed in vain for some sort of recognition of his efforts.

It was easy to get through gates as everyone had been marveling at the comet/asteroid and making fearful or even excited chatter when his partner set off a massive chain of rockslides, crushing residential areas along with their inhabitants. With the mad scramble, no one noticed the lone figure, dressed in a normal male outfit with tussled grey hair as he ran to the hospital. No one questioned him. Why would they?

He waltzed into the hospital and threatened the receptionist at stake-point to tell him which part of the hospital was most heavily guarded, taking special care not to word it in a way that would give off his true intentions. Luckily, she thought him a simple civilian lunatic who would not fare for even a second at the 24 hour guard of mixed Kumo jonin and chunin protecting secret and vital, if somewhat strategically unimportant, human samples.

Once they were ribbons of blood and gore staining the ground, Hidan knocked down the door, inadvertently toppling a shelf full of everything from saliva to blood to semen and spraying the ground with its translucent pinkish sludge. Hidan didn't register the disgust anybody else would feel as he walked, practically barefoot, to the endmost point of the room. A scientist or two fearfully scurried out of his way and into the hallway, but he paid them no mind.

Finally, in front of the largest refrigerator with the biggest and meanest looking locks that hummed with an inordinate amount of electricity, Hidan clicked his tongue and started his long list of ritual confessions, drawing blood on the ground in the shape of an inverted triangle in the middle of a circle as he did so. He jammed one of his spikes in the side and wrenched part of the door open, not affected in the least by the amount of volts needed to kill a whole family line of charging T-Rexes. A few more wrenches was all it took for the door to swing open with a disappointed crackling loss of power.

Hidan took one of the vials inside marked 'A', and looked at the blood with an amount of disgust. The coward's way.

He drank the blood, then stabbed himself in the heart.

He grabbed the bottle marked 'Darui', drank the blood, then stabbed himself in the heart.

The bottle marked 'C'.

The bottle marked 'Mabui'.

The bottle marked 'Samui'.

The bottle marked 'Atsui'.

All the bottles that were in the fridge, he drank from and killed himself.

Then the bottles marked 'B' and 'Yugito'.

For Yugito, he drank the blood and stabbed himself in all the joints he thought important. For B, he neatly severed the spinal column at its cervix.

Job done, Hidan walked out of the hospital, covered in blood, as everyone screamed for the shinobi, their saviors, to help them. They screamed for the Raikage and his brother. For the Jinchuuriki. For the Kumo guard.

Nobody came to the aid of the people being slaughtered by Kakuzu and Hidan.

00000000

Rock

Onoki looked at the meteor falling down to the earth with a dissatisfied glower. "Fucking leaf nin," he murmured before laboriously getting out his chair and floating out the window. Hopefully he wouldn't be gone long enough for the entire village to get swept up in a panic.

Hopefully.

00000000

Leaf

Fu hovered above the entirety of Konoha about a half kilometer in the air. From her vantage point, the complete village layout was visible. It looked so goddamn tiny, yet huge at the same time. At her height, it looked less like a village and more like a sprawl of clumped buildings dispersed intermittently between small fields of farmland and lush forestry. Every real bond she had, she made there. Her friends, her lover, her superiors, her juniors; she was going to protect them all at whatever cost.

"Hey Fu," Kakashi uttered from underneath her, held from falling down by a strange contraption she made from her exoskeleton "you just about ready?" His voice was cracking slightly with a mix of fear and apprehension, breaking through his aloof and calm demeanor. It wasn't like she could blame him. If even a single thing went wrong with his part of the plan, it would mean certain death not only for him but also for every single person that was alive.

No pressure, or anything.

He was lifted from her underneath and sandwiched tight against her back as her transformation began in earnest. Ever since Fu had realized that she could manipulate her semi-permeable cloak into physical exoskeleton, she'd been experimenting with different types of polymers and materials in an effort to replicate them in exoskeleton form. After years of practice, she could recreate nearly any attribute to any material with her exoskeleton, though she still had trouble with combining them correctly. Rubber, metal, wood, rope, almost anything was game. After she realized that she was practically a smorgasbord of raw materials, she took a few classes in practical engineering on the side to learn how to put them to good use.

Now, her abilities with materialization ran everything from sewing up a gash on a leg with an exoskeletal string and needle to the creation of siege weapons capable of hefting entire boulders across miles and miles of land.

Her back grew more wings that were bigger and fatter than the originals as her back extended tens of times wider and about a hundred times longer. Her orangish purple exoskeleton began to resemble more a bastardized crossbow mixed with a trebuchet held in the air by bug wings than any sort of monster.

Didn't make it look any less terrifying.

Her main body glided through the material until her head poked from just under the round tube that Kakashi was meant to be launched through. A couple of circular rings formed around her right eye that grew clear lenses of varying densities and magnification. They shifted around a bit, giving her a clear line of sight to the meteor. If she was going to do this correctly, she'd have to take into account for everything. The speed of the meteor, the trajectory it was going to make, which parts looked softer, the speed that Kakashi was going to fly at, any deviations he was going to make in flight, any drop off he was going to suffer because of gravity, even the Coriolis Effect had to be considered.

For a few agonizing seconds, the world was still. Her cannon was shifting constantly with an almost robotic precision down to the difference of centimeters, millimeters, even micrometers. She was only going to get one shot with this and she was going to make it count.

The cannon stopped moving for one second. Two. Three. Fu mentally went through a checklist of every single deviation to which Kakashi would fly, then pulled the first metaphorical trigger.

Her cannon seemingly jettisoned the entire lower portion of itself, attached only to the main body with a cable that was strung through the middle. The cable tensed underneath the monstrous weight of the jettisoned exoskeleton, pulling a gear that spun wildly on the very top of her improvised launcher and making the already taught wire of the two crossbow wings cinch together. Tighter and tighter and tighter as the jettisoned lower half kept climbing downwards first at the speeds that a large body of mass would normally warrant and all the way down until it trickled to a snail's speed.

When it didn't dare fall any lower, when the entire launcher shuddered with the effort of not exploding under such high pressures for even a second longer, Fu pulled the second metaphorical trigger.

All the pressure built up by the strange trebuchet-crossbow hybrid unleashed with a crack that resounded across the entire nation. Smoke clouds boomed out from the point of where the bullet was sent flying through, forming themselves into a concentric ring pattern. Her launcher was not one meant for multiple firings, evidenced when it fell began to rapidly degenerate and lose mass from the violence of the shot, sending giant chunks of exoskeleton tumbling to the forest below.

The bullet in question looked like a purple medical capsule that had a nearly imperceptibly small black line splitting it lengthways. Everyone that saw her create the strange launcher waited with baited breath and hard, scared eyes. The bullet arced across the world faster than any human should be allowed to without resorting to time-space foolery to do so. Quickly, the capsule became a dot and was eventually outshined by the flames left in wake of the meteor's surface.

Once she was sure that the capsule was out of the lower atmosphere, she pulled the third metaphorical trigger.

Out of everybody's line of sight, the bullet split neatly down the middle along the black line and blasted apart with micro explosions, exposing the soft, human core.

Kakashi, with Sharingan out and spinning wildly, thrust both his arms in front of him and watched as he approached with meteor. Outside of the immediate effects of air, he wasn't aware of anything other than him and the giant landmass approaching him. Or, the landmass that he was approaching. In fact, it was like nothing changed around him at all. The only way he could convince himself that wasn't stuck still was by the fact that the meteor was growing at a slow, steady pace.

_Lightning's Best Offense: after completely devoting yourself to the element of lightning, you have gained the power to enshrine your body with pure electricity. All that touches you will be sundered. Solid stone will turn to earth 'neath your feet. Even materials that are traditionally insulators will be charged by your defensive shroud._

Kakashi's body was hidden from view as a torrent of electricity poured out of every part of him. The meteor looked like the size of the sun to him through his squinted eyes. Then it grew. Ballooning outwards so quickly that Kakashi felt his gut lurch for only a moment before he hit the meteor.

Back on the ground, about 30 seconds passed after Kakashi was shot from Fu, everyone was getting antsy, shifting their weight every few seconds and looking at the friends and compatriots for something, anything. They began to worry. A deep fear seated itself in the foot of their stomachs as they tried not to think about what would happen if Kakashi missed, or only glanced off the side, got smashed against the surface, stopped midway through the giant rock, or simply went in and out without breaking it apart.

They had to squint their eyes as the light coming from the meteor flared up, then split apart into five different streams. Many let out cries of relief and whoops of joy, but Tsunade was left biting her lower lip as her worries were confirmed. Two of those strikes were going to be practically unavoidable. She turned around to face the small group of scientists who were already fiddling with all the instruments that they could bring up on such small notice, trying to figure out the trajectories of all the five smaller meteors.

As soon as they got one done, they told Tsunade, who in turn told the team of Jiraiya, Anko, and Katsuyu where to go in order to catch their assigned rock. When she got the second one, Tsunade turned to a slightly drained looking Fu and told her where to be for the second. A flicker of worry spread in her breast at the sight of the tanned teen, who seemed pale and drained of energy, but it was brutally extinguished. There was no room for doubt if even a portion of the village's populace was going to be saved.

Just as they told her of the third strike, a flicker of movement attracted her eye to the monument, where there appeared to be a group of people unceremoniously dumped on the fourth's head. A kunai was thrown from the top of the head and sunk into the concrete by her foot. Naruto was kneeling, winded and slightly bruised, though looking good all things considered, at her foot the next moment. He straightened himself out and began vomiting questions at such a rapid fire pace that Tsunade had to hold up a hand and level a stern glare at him to cease the verbal barrage.

She pointed at the sky, gesturing to the meteors as she said "Can you stop one of those?"

Naruto paused and gulped loudly. "I think so," was all he said.

Tsunade nodded and pointed out the location of the third strike with a few clipped phrases of where it was going to land. As Naruto vanished away, Tsunade turned to the group that descended the head and landed in front of her with questioning, suspicious eyes, mostly aimed towards the new additions to the group.

Sasuke walked up to her with his mouth pressed into a thin line and his anger hardly concealed. He pointed a finger at her sternum, mere inches away from actually touching her, and loudly whispered "we need to have a talk after all of this."

Tsunade frowned and looked slightly off to the side. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was eating his goat. She only hoped that when he learned of the truth, he wouldn't tear Konoha apart trying to kill Danzo, Himura, and Koharu. She nodded, acquiescing to his demand. Normally, she wouldn't do anything under the forceful duress of another person, especially not a newly returned convict, but her conscious of what her sensei and his cohorts did made her suppress that particular part of her personality.

It took a lot of effort to do so, however

As Sasuke jumped after Naruto, Kisame was nervously looking from side to side as he thumbed the hilt of Samehada. Sure, it sounded all nice and dandy to help out the people who Itachi had his true allegiance to, but as he looked around, eyeing all the insanely powerful shinobi who considered him to be a major war criminal, he couldn't help but think that flying by the cuff of his pants might have landed him in deep shit this time around.

Tsunade sharply turned to him next, causing his core to tighten into the reflexive fight or flight response that had saved his life countless times thus far. He tried to keep his expression neutral as she stalked up to him and stared him directly into the eyes, almost like she was searching for something from him. A few seconds passed with him not drawing breath before Tsunade pursed her lip and quirked a questioning eyebrow. "You with us?" she asked brusquely.

Kisame looked to the large fox for support before turning back to her and saying "I… guess so."

Tsunade nodded her head silently a few times before slinking off back to the front of the group and addressing all present. "Everyone who does not feel confident that they can help stop a hurtling meteor from destroying the entire village, go man the defenses in whatever capacity you are capable of."

They all nodded and split apart, going off in whatever direction they thought would be the best. The ones left standing in front of her were Yamato, Shino, and Kisame.

"Fu looked to be tough shape," she told Shino, not having to say any more. He nodded and disassembled into a swarm of insects that dispersed across the village.

Continuing, the fifth hokage said "Yamato and Kisame, I guess. You two are with me."

Yamato glanced at the landshark and sidestepped a few paces from him. Tsunade turned to the science team, who told her of a fourth impact. "And what about the fifth?" she asked.

The head scientist shrugged helplessly. "The damage should be superficial, but we can't predict that with complete confidence."

Tsunade grimaced. That didn't sound too good, but considering it was a giant space rock, there wasn't much that could be done and tentative superficiality was a lot better than complete annihilation.

She jumped off to the fourth predicted impact zone, gesturing for the two to follow her.

The top of the tower was left ominously silent as the science team vacated the area for the relative safety of the inside of the Hokage Monument. Shouting could be heard off in the distance and every so often, a frantic shinobi would cross over the tops of houses, but considering that moments prior, it was a hub of activity and negative emotions, to see it so lifeless was a strange event. Not that there was anybody to actually see it.

Space contorted into a singular black dot that engulfed the area of a human as a man walked out of thin air and took in the sight of his home town. Madara came to a stand next to him out of thin air, followed by the unceremonious dumping of three limp bodies. One unconscious with red hair and the robes of a kage, a burly black one completely turned into a paraplegic, and one squirming in pain as flames flickered around her body. Jinchuuriki all had extreme regeneration capabilities, but even the amount of damage done to them would take hours to heal at the best, and weeks at the worst.

After them came eight other people walking out of a time-space barrier. They all walked like zombies would with vacant stares, completely black eyes, and skin that looked like it was cracking apart. Konan, Hidan, Kakuzu, Deidara, Sasori, Itachi, and Nagato all shared these characteristics with Black Zetsu being the only one not reanimated.

Obito seemed uncomfortable looking at the seven turned ones. "Are you completely sure that was absolutely necessary?" he asked in a way that sounded like he'd asked it before. "They were all completely loyal to our cause."

"But now they're immortal," Madara said. "They were always just sacrificial pawns in our road to a new, better world."

"We could have at least let them keep their emotions," Obito continued.

"Their finding peace is one of the only weaknesses of this jutsu. Even if they are slightly underpowered because of it, this is the optimal way to go."

Obito looked to Black Zetsu, hoping to get his input, but got nothing in return.

Obito sighed a little and looked at his village once more. A sort of feeling stirred inside him as he looked at it. He didn't know what it was, or what it meant, but it was there. Madara walked up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder, looking at the same visage. It wasn't meant to be a comforting gesture, neither did it feel like one, but a more triumphant type of gesture. His plan was about come true and he couldn't wait a single second.

**AN/ have a gentlemanly day.**


	39. a new fight

Chapter 39

Site of the first impact

It was in a smallish clearing of land just in front of the gates to Konoha where two giant plumes of smoke exploded into existence. These were hiding Gamabunta, boss of the toad summons and Manda, boss of the snake summons. Right next to them, as they waved the smoke away to get a clear view of exactly what was happening, sat the ever reserved Katsuyu, boss of the slug clan.

"What's the meaning of this?!" questioned Manda as soon as he realized there were no humans to be eaten in his immediate vicinity.

"Boya…" Gamabunta said dangerously, rubbing the hilt of his tanto and shifting his vision as he looked for the enemy.

Anko stomped on the nose of the kings of snakes to get his attention, even going so far as to wave her arm over head a little bit. The beastly looking eyes had to cross themselves to get a view of the woman making a home of his snout. He began growling, fully stating his intentions of eating the caster should there be no sacrifice without having to say even a word.

"Oh, don't give me that." Anko stated, not impressed in the slightest by his show of force. She pointed to the meteor just minutes from turning them into a smear on the ground and dangerously said "you see that? That big fucking meteor on a crash course for this planet? That thing is going to kill every single last human on this continent unless we can stop it. That means no more snackages for your poor little tummy tumtum." Although this was a slight stretch of the truth, Anko felt no remorse over lying to a man eating snake with serious anger issues.

Manda, although not happy in the least about being talked down to like one of their strange human infants, did have to admit that of all the things he'd ever been summoned to do, meteor wrangling had to be just about the absolute highest on the magnitude spectrum of strange – and he worked with Orochimaru for most of his life – so he decided to forgo the usual ritual of human sacrifice if only to see for himself how this situation was going to play out. He made no more comment to Anko and instead swiveled his head to Katsuyu and Gamabunta, saying "looks like the gang's all back," derisively.

Gamabunta snarled, but said nothing at the snake while Katsuyu was able to maintain her usual composure. "Is there a plan of attack?" she asked with a quiet, yet booming voice.

"Slow it, then force it down prematurely!" Jiraiya shouted out simplistically.

"This isn't date night for you, is it?" Anko yelled back with a devilish smirk on her face.

Jiraiya looked confused for a second before realization dawned on him. "This isn't the time to be making jokes like those!" he shouted, very miffed by what his partner's former student was insinuating.

Anko chuckled to herself a little bit as she unhooked one of the vials from her coat and downed it in one shot. The veins all over her body bulged out as the effects of the vial spread its effects. Her face took on a nasty purplish color as she withdrew a small knife from her coat.

_Blood Corruption Level: 10/234_

_Master Potion of Chakra Regeneration: your body works overtime to continually reproduce all the chakra in your system at an almost instantaneous rate. Time limit is five minutes. Blood Corruption +10_

_Knife of Infinite Explosions: Looted from the remains of Iwagakure's top raid boss, this blade will explode on impact with its explosive radius directly proportional to the amount of chakra charged into it. If retrieved from the explosion, there will be no marks of distress on the blade and can be used again as much as you may wish._

Her complexion began to normalize back to her usual self as the blade started to glow a bright gold, its brightness growing with every second her hand was grasping the handle.

"This'll force it down!" she shouted to Jiraiya. "It's your guys' turn to slow it after I do my thing."

"We'll go for the usual combination, then?" Gamabunta suggested. There were no words of disagreement from either Katsuyu or Manda.

Anko began to breathe deeply to calm her rapidly beating heart. Anko spent a good portion of Naruto's training trip becoming a master in creating solvents, poisons, potions, poultices, decoctions, and really anything else that might give her an edge in combat. She decided that if she was going to completely master a skill, it would be a skill that she herself felt a connection to, not one 'bestowed' upon her by her former master. There was a catch, however, as any of the stronger consumables had something called a _Blood Corruption _stat. If the meter filled up, bad things tended to happen. The last time she experimented with her limits was when she made it go to about 90% full. The morning after that, she felt the most profound sensation of pain that she'd ever felt in her entire life.

_Blood Corruption _notwithstanding, her mastery grew to the point that she felt adequately prepared for absolutely any situation that might present itself to her. This was pronounced no better than how she regulated the flow of her rapidly increasing chakra to the blade in her hand, which was starting to glow so brightly that it even began to physically hurt to look at it.

"Anko…" Jiraiya said, noting the rapidly decreasing distance between them and the meteor.

"Not yet," she murmured, barely being heard by Jiraiya.

The meteor fragment's tail changed color as it began its descent into the lower atmosphere.

"Anko," Jiraiya said more hurriedly.

"Not yet!" she bit back, sweat beginning to pour from her brow from the concentration. There was so much power in her knife at that point that if it so much as grazed the asshair of an unlucky fly, half of Konoha would be rent to rock and dust.

"Anko!" Jiraiya shouted.

Anko growled as she ducked the knife behind her and catapulted it through the air tip first on a collision course with the meteor fragment. The space debris hit the knife and flashed a bright golden before slamming into the earth, continuing its destruction on a carving path right to the three boss summons.

"SLUG ART: TONGUE TOOTH STICKY ACID"

"SNAKE ART: GRAND DUST STROM"

"FROG ART: TOAD OIL FLAME BULLET"

"FIRE RELEASE: GRAND FIREBALL"

The three boss summons all launched their signature techniques at once with Jiraiya helping Gamabunta with his. They collided in mid-air and combined in a great crackle of sizzling mixtures heated beyond the temperature of the surface of the sun. The great beam of molten liquid carved its own path on its way to the meteor, painting the ground with its substance, turning entire swaths of the forest into a sort of grand glue trap.

The meteor chunk and the beam of synergized energy collided, sending scraps of melting rock and a torrent of the most acidic rain ever conceived onto the earth below. The ground sizzled like it were being coated with lava and the trees themselves began to melt, not even having the chance to catch on fire. That particular part of the forest would take a while to grow back, if it ever did.

Even with all the boss summons' power concentrated on a singular point, it wasn't enough to stop the meteor, or even really slow it all that much. The most that they accomplished was reducing it to half its size and coating it in a layer of acidic sludge.

At seeing the meteor chunk practically unimpededly barrel to where they were, Jiraiya gave the order to scatter to the three bosses. Gamabunta jumped out of the way, Katsuyu dissolved into innumerable other slugs, and Manda slithered away, giving the path of destruction a wide berth.

The meteor chunk was traveling so fast that Jiraiya only had the time to regain his balance on Gamabunta's head as he landed on the ground and swivel his body around before it was already past him. They weren't very far from the gate. If it continued like it was, then entire districts and communities of buildings would be gone in an instant.

"SUMMONING: TRIPPLE RASHOUMON"

Three demon barriers erupted from the ground in between the meteor and the Konoha protective walls. And not a moment too soon as it smashed the first one to smithereens, punched through the second one, and came to a final thudding stop at the third one. There was a general silence as Jiraiya tried to understand what was happening. There was only one person in the world that he knew of that used such a technique. That person was an enemy of the state and was wanted dead or alive for war crimes against Konoha. Such a person would never come to the rescue of his home village.

Jiraiya's eyes widened as he twirled around to the presence that went unnoticed until it was right behind him. Orochimaru only had to smile at the look of his teammate's incredulity.

"Did you miss me?" Even his harsh, grating voice was belied by the apparent joviality that was present in his words.

Jiraiya took a single step back and tried to splutter out a response. "O-Orochimaru? Wh-what are you doing here?"

The snake in question didn't answer immediately as he turned his back to his former partner to look at the walls of Konoha. "…Something's happening Jiraiya. Something interesting. I think we both know this. In truth, I had decided that I wasn't going to interrupt this little event in any way and just watch everything unfold. But that's no fun. So you can count me in for some help."

Jiraiya's shocked expression was quickly switched with one that was filled with rage. He stalked up to Orochimaru, clamped a hand on his shoulder and twirled him around so they were face to face. "How do I know that you aren't going to betray us, like you always do?"

Orochimaru shrugged, knowing that such an expression of the body would only exacerbate Jiraiya's rage even more. "You don't really have any other choice, do you?"

Faster than he could react, Jiraiya had one of his burly hands wrapped around Orochimaru's neck as he was lifted two feet in the air. The snake's expression hadn't changed in the slightest. He was still smiling.

"If you didn't want my help, you could have just said s-"

Orochimaru's head rolled off his body, effectively ending his sentence. Jiraiya tossed the body aside, disgusted, and turned to Anko, who was the one to do the head cutting. "You okay?" he asked "I didn't know you could body flicker that fast."

Anko got up and rolled her shoulder around.

_Blood Corruption Level: 14/234_

_Potion of Speed: By drinking this potion, you can temporarily enhance your body's speed tenfold. Time limit is 20 seconds. Blood Corruption Level +5._

"I can't," she grumbled, not filling Jiraiya in on her ability to enhance different parts of her abilities temporarily. It'd take too long anyway.

Orochimaru's body reassembled itself and got back up with a great lurch. "Ahhh, Anko-chan. I haven't seen you in such a long time. How are things?"

Anko threw a kunai at him. It buried up to the hilt in the middle of his forehead as he crumpled to the ground in a heap. His body split open and another Orochimaru stepped out, covered in a slick liquid. "I guess that our parting could have been on better circumstances, but that's no reason to keep a grudge for this long, is there?"

Anko threw one of the vials on her coat at him. It smashed apart and covered him in neon pink liquid. His body began to lose shape as it reverted to a primordial sludge. Snakes writhed out it and tumbled over each other, eventually settling into a vaguely human form and finally consolidating back into Orochimaru. "You do know that I'm just going to keep coming back, right?"

Anko growled loudly. It wasn't a normal human sounding growl either. That growl might as well have come from the jaws of a hellhound. It unsettled Jiraiya and made Orochimaru finally stop smiling. His lips were instead pressed into a thin line as Anko's fury demanded to be taken seriously.

Even Orochimaru felt small as Anko slowly walked up to him, back slightly arched and teeth bared. He could see the muscles on her jaw clenching rapidly and that her palms were dripping with blood from the force of her digging her fingernails in. She came to a stop in front of him, eyes looking like they were about to shoot lasers out of pure force of will. "I loved you," she whispered "I adored you and followed you to the ends of the earth. You taught me how to be strong, but you also broke me, made me weak. I've hated you for a very long time. Imagined your death in more ways than you could possible imagine. You don't deserve anything for all that you've done not only to me, but also to everyone else that you've killed, crippled, and wronged. You are a detestable, inhuman cretin that deserves to rot in hell for all of eternity. You are a sociopath, an enemy of mankind."

She closed her eyes and frowned until her lower jaw was jutting out as she averted her face from his. Anko slowly walked back to Jiraiya's side, not looking at Orochimaru. "But you're right. No matter what I do to kill you, you'll just keep coming back. Trying to exert revenge on something like you is an effort in futility. I don't think I'll ever not hate you, but I do know one thing for sure. I'm not you. I'm not defined by you; I refuse to be. All the shit that you put me through will still be with me until I die, but that's not who I am. You taught me that I can't trust anyone. You taught me that humanity will always wrong me and that I only have myself to rely on."

Anko turned to face Orochimaru once more. "But that's not true. I'm in love with someone now and I'd do anything for him. I trust him with my life and he trusts me with his. Whoever I am, whoever I will become is something that will have nothing to do with you from now on. Whatever happened to you to fuck your mind up so bad, I don't want to know. If you're going to help us, then do it far away from me. If you suddenly find a conscience, find it somewhere far away from me. I'm done with you."

Anko didn't say another word as she hopped off of Gamabunta's head and made her way to Konoha. Her face was steely and determined, not that Orochimaru would know, as she didn't look back.

Orochimaru turned to Jiraiya with an uncharacteristically pensive look on his face. Jiraiya closed his eyes and shook his head, acting less like a teammate and more a disappointed parent figure. "You shouldn't have come back," was the only thing his former teammate had to say to him as Gamabunta desummoned and Jiraiya sprinted away, leaving Orochimaru completely alone.

00000000

Site of the second impact

Fu tried to control her breathing as she was once more hovering in the air just above the Konoha wall. Her eyes were lazily drawn to the first meteor impact, where her gut clenched on seeing that the effort that Anko and Jiraiya put in might have been for naught, but was relieved of that stress when the three demon gates erupted from the ground and stopped the meteor in its tracks.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that she should have been questioning that particular occurrence, but she was too drained to be thinking about that. Instead, she looked to the meteor that was increasing in size with every second that was heading her way.

"**Are you okay? That last transformation took a lot out of you," **Chomei observed with no small amount of parental-like worry.

Fu nodded her head. She knew that expressing herself outwardly when having a mental conversation with her bijuu looked strange, but when she tried to break that habit, nothing ever felt right when they were talking. 'I'm just tired. It's okay. How much do you think we're going to need to change to stop it in its tracks?'

"…**I don't know. Too much."**

Fu nodded again, this time more resignedly. 'Too much it is.'

"Hello Fu."

The Jinchuuriki started for only a second before she recognized the voice of who said that. She turned around and felt a smile tug at her lips. "Hey Shino, you're back."

Shino nodded with his normal collected, hard-to-reach countenance. Since he and Fu were among the only people in Team Naruto that held a fascination and genuine affection towards bugs and other bug-like beings, they found a sort of kinship in each other and even got a few synthesis techniques in their belts. "I assume you need help."

Fu wordlessly held her arms out to her sides with a small quirk of her lips.

_We are Legion: you completely lose your physical body for a hive conglomeration of bugs. So long as there are bugs that are bent to your whim within your general location, you may reform as many times and in as many forms as you like._

Shino's body destabilized into an innumerable amount of bugs ranging all over the species range and promptly enveloped Fu. They swarmed over her and dug into her body where they were deconstructed for parts and reabsorbed into raw materials and energy. All over Konoha, a swarm of flying insects lifted like a black and grey curtain that undulated and flew into a point, all aiming to become one with Fu.

_She's a Killer Queen: You can absorb insectoid organisms for energy and to temporarily enhance your physical abilities._

Where one might think that this process would be painful, or at the very least, downright strange to go through, Fu didn't see it that way at all. If she were to equate it to anything, it would be like stepping into a hot bath after a hard day's work full of stressful social encounters, menial work, and uncomfortable clothing. All her aches and pains vanished and she felt a clean, natural energy fill her up. Less like drinking three RedBulls in one sitting and more like getting out of bed after having woken up from an extended sleep-in. Suddenly, where there was despondency and a lack of confidence, there became a hopeful energy and a knowledge that she could do what needed to be done.

She grinned in a mocking way at the meteor chunk, like she was about to challenge it to an arm-wrestle. Something that wasn't too far off from what she was planning on, actually.

So long as the insect duo were together, nothing was impossible. With his perk, Shino practically became a battery to Fu's unrelenting brute force strikes. The members of Team Naruto that knew of their combination fighting technique all agreed that they formed the ultimate cheat character. An infinitely reforming boss of boundless energy and physically changing properties with a penchant for total annihilation and destruction was a foe that every single one of them agreed that they would be better off not facing.

Fu's smile was hidden under the rapidly encroaching purple exoskeleton. Her body's proportions expanded outwards at unprecedented speeds until she was in her normal full-tailed state. The onslaught of encroaching bugs fell away from her massive body when she began charging up her beast ball. An inky blackness that began to fill up some of the most volatile explosive energy that she had ever encountered in her life. Her wings fluttered behind her with anticipation, then blasted into a flurry of motion as she rocketed off at the meteor.

Fu did not stop. She did not waver. All the will that she had in her body was being used to make her body go faster than it had ever gone, to be harder than it had ever been, to be greater than she had ever felt. Her beast ball continued to expand, albeit at a slower pace now, which not only increased the explosive potential, but also the volatility of it.

She began to lift up to meet the trajectory of the meteor, pointing her body head-first, or more specifically, beast bomb-first. The beast bomb began to wobble and fluctuate like a water balloon that had been filled far past capacity. She half expected it to burst before she got there and coat the forest below a pretty black-purple color.

It held, however, as the meteor began to get closer and closer and closer until she finally smacked right in the face of it.

Although by all natural conventions of physics, she should have been squished like a bug when she hit that massive rock, she didn't. In fact, she was unscathed as her body became the epicenter of a giant explosion, raining boulders and rocks to the ground below completely out of the living area of any human for miles around.

Her body reabsorbed the exoskeleton back into herself as she turned herself around to get a good look of all the falling debris and the other chunks fall to the earth

00000000

Site of the third impact

"So… wait. You and Anko are an item now?" Sasuke asked. Purple pieces of his armor began to take shape all around him and clank together with a strange unearthly clamor. It wasn't his normal Susanoo, that much was for certain, but more along the lines of what his Susanoo wore. He and Naruto were standing on well cultivated farmland somewhere to the southwestern part of Konoha's interior, staring down the third meteor fragment and making idle conversation as they did so.

"Yeah," Naruto said happily as orange Kyuubi chakra flickered around him. He was lifted up into the air as black markings flowed from somewhere along his navel and onto the beast chakra, giving it detail and form. He was left standing as a giant spiritual looking fox with a predilection towards blocky looking tattoos.

Sasuke stepped into the orange chakra and was lifted off his feet, being brought to the head where Naruto was along with his pieces of armor. They changed shape and molded together until the fox construct was completely covered head to toe with nearly impenetrable purple armor.

"Honestly," Naruto said "I was as surprised as you are that she said yes to me."

"Don't you think she's a bit… you know."

"Old?"

"Yeah."

Naruto shrugged. "It wasn't a problem for her or for me. Anyway, I thought you'd be a lot more surprised with that other aspect of my love life."

"What aspect?"

"Oh, you don't know?" Naruto asked with a devilish grin tugging on his cheeks. Sasuke's only response to Naruto was to quirk an eyebrow questioningly when the Uzumaki gestured to the city as a whole just as the blanket of insects began to lift from the ground and swirl to a point, covering Fu in shroud of creepy crawlies.

When Naruto realized that Sasuke wasn't picking up what he was laying down, he pointed to her more directly and said in a low voice "Fu too."

Sasuke looked confused for a fraction of a second before his face lit up in a contorted realization. "No way."

Naruto looked all too pleased with himself at seeing Sasuke's unbelieving face. In actuality, he was very much embarrassed to brag about romantic or otherwise sexual exploits to anyone, be they friends, family, or complete strangers. He also didn't want people to think that he was practicing bigamy for the sole purpose of practicing it and not because of a web of interconnected events that led to a complicated, if loving, three way relationship between him, Anko, and Fu.

However, bragging to Sasuke was another thing entirely.

Sasuke whistled as he saw her turn into her full-tailed state and fly off to the meteor. "How does it work?" he asked.

It was Naruto's turn to look confused. "How does what work?"

"The three of you. Do have like, a bed schedule or something?"

And just like that, the shame of watering down his relationship to juvenile levels if only brag to his childhood friend about it fell on Naruto like an overweight elephant. "I-It's not like that…" Naruto said, trying to salvage Sasuke's understanding of his love life. "It's like… we all… love each other?" Naruto said unsurely. Truthfully, even he barely understood how it worked. By all conventional means of how relationships ought to work, theirs most definitely shouldn't, so he was understandably having a bit of trouble relating it to Sasuke. He decided right then and there that once the world was saved from whatever the fuck was going on, he was going to have a serious sit down with Anko and Fu to make sure he had the right ideas and terminology down.

Sasuke saw Naruto's sudden discomfort and decided to let the matter drop. It wasn't as if he really cared about Naruto's love life, strange as it was, because his mind was preoccupied with bigger fish to fry. He mostly focused on how he was going to kill Danzo, Himura, and Koharu after getting all the information on his brother from them as he could. He didn't know how much truth there was to what Itachi told him. For all he knew, it could be one last, sick joke that his brother was playing on him. But he couldn't take that chance. Somewhere, far in the recesses of his brain, there still existed a love for his brother. A love taken from a simpler time where his brother was like an idol to him. If there was even an infinitesimally small chance that that Itachi existed all along, then he was going to find it.

The fox being began to swirl its hands around in place as it produced one of the largest rasengan ever conceived. A tumultuous wind began to pick up at the epicenter as he thrust both palms up to the sky to more properly hold onto the swirling mass of kinetic energy. The armor around his arms lifted off and grabbed a hold of a giant bow that suddenly materialized in its palms. A long pole of an arrow was fitted in its string that extended and impaled the giant rasengan right down the middle. Making it so it didn't explode and take out all of Konoha was all that Naruto could focus on. In a matter of moments, the bow was aimed and the arrow was let loose, flying with a precision that only Sasuke had with his Sharingan out and spinning wildly could properly do.

The arrow, with the rasengan still spinning on the top, bore into the meteor about a mile away from Konoha and reduced its mass to a fourth of its original before the rasengan finally lost its stability and exploded, completely incinerating all traces of the meteor in the air.

The armor-clad titan, now lacking a purpose, shrunk in size until only Naruto and Sasuke were left standing side by side on the muddy earth and hoping that the other meteor chunks were stopped. Naruto felt his legs wobble slightly under his weight. His arms felt like water balloons filled with a hardened jelly. His eyelids felt unnaturally heavy on his eyes and he couldn't think straight. The exhaustion of chasing down Sasuke, beating him to the ground, healing him back up, transporting Team Naruto plus a few others back to Konoha, then creating one of the largest spiraling chakra balls he'd ever made finally caught up to him with a vengeance.

He fumbled around one of his pockets and took out a soldier pill.

_Mastercraft Soldier pill: not only do you get back all energy expended within the last 24 hours, but all fatigue and other related weariness is lost. Lose 5% of health, doubling the value of health lost after every pill taken within 24 hours._

Naruto popped the pill in his mouth and swallowed hard. Like a switch had been flipped, Naruto bounced up and down with renewed vigor and enthusiasm. He looked across to Sasuke, whose eyes were downcast in a deep thought. Naruto nudged him in the shoulder, making his head snap quickly to Naruto's, slightly surprised and embarrassed that he'd been caught unawares; not that he'd show it.

"Hn?" he grunted.

"You okay man? We're probably going to need to get the fifth one too."

Sasuke nodded a little too quickly, but didn't say anything more.

Naruto sighed in consternation at his friend's lack of communication skills. "Look, if you need to talk…"

"I'm fine," he said brusquely. "And this isn't exactly the time to be having a heart to heart. Drop it."

Dropping it was the exact opposite thing he wanted to do at that very moment, but he had to agree that Sasuke was correct. There were things to be done and not a lot of time to do them. He made another silent promise to himself that after _GAME OVER_ was reached, he'd get answers out of Sasuke one way or another.

Naruto didn't know if this was okay. To treat Sasuke like nothing happened. To pretend that Sasuke never left all his friends behind in the pursuit of vengeance and power. It probably wasn't, he reasoned, but it didn't feel real to Naruto. Not yet at least.

Naruto shook his head, glancing at the fourth meteor chunk with a heavy expression. Nothing felt right.

Nothing at all.

00000000

Site of the fourth impact.

Tsunade placed both of her hands on the naked back of Yamato. They glowed a sort of greenish blue as she artificially infused his body with a huge amount of her own chakra. Sweat beaded on her brow and trickled down her face, landing her arms and his back. Yamato was sitting cross legged on the ground with his hands pressed together tightly and his face screwed shut. His controlled breathing was stifled with a sort of hitch every now and then, the only sign that this synchronous technique was causing him discomfort.

Kisame looked at the two with no small amount of discomfort. "Fucking leaf nin," he murmured under his breath as he tore his gaze from their strange ritual and to the meteor fragment starting to get bigger and bigger with every second. Now that he was only a few meters from the heads of the monument, the meteor looked even bigger. Kisame began his own preparations for minimizing destruction of Konoha. Reflecting on it with a sort of dark humor, he realized that in his past there was absolutely no way that the prospect of coming to the aid of one of the largest hidden villages in the world was something that would have ever seen a glimmer of reality in his mind. Regardless, he unslung Samehada from his back and threw the remains of his cloak to the ground.

Before even the first piece of darkened cloth managed to touch the ground, Samehada jumped up on its own and happily jumped into Kisame, fusing them together into his true shark man form. In his new form, he walked up behind Tsunade, who now would have barely reached his mid torso if she were standing up, and began signing out one of his most deadly techniques.

"Might want to hold your breath," he warned menacingly. Switching sides he may be, but being a scary motherfucker was a part of his job description.

Tsunade flicked her eyes to the side, the most amount of movement her concentration would allow, and gave a mental huff. 'Fucking swordsmen.'

Kisame's lungs filled with a huge amount of water before he was practically turned into a geyser. Torrents of water erupted from his mouth and curved down in a huge arc, falling on the ground with enough force to crack sheer rock. The waves rushed in all directions before hitting an invisible wall about a half kilometer away and rebounding back to their position with a vengeance. Without stopping the water surge from his mouth, Kisame held his arms out in front of him and the waves parted around Tsunade and Yamato, quickly creating a bubble around the two that barely kept them from getting drenched.

The huge half kilometer wide bubble of water kept growing in size, bigger and bigger until he was almost running on half chakra, which, considering the amount of chakra he had, was quite a feat indeed. Since he wasn't at the epicenter of the bubble like he usually was, it was harder for him to keep the bubble from rupturing, but since he wasn't fighting anybody while he kept the water bubble around him he was allowed more concentration to shape the bubble as he pleased.

The top of the giant water prison shifted its bulk, bringing in more water to face the meteor from its sides, reducing the circumference of the water touching the ground greatly. The water distorted the view of the meteor chunk, but it wasn't getting any smaller.

Kisame glanced at the duo with slightly worried eyes. His dome of water want going to be enough to stop a meteor sent from space hellbent on turning their homes into a crumbly mess. Whatever they had up their collective sleeve was going to have to be huge.

As if they could sense his worry and had a keen sense of dramatic timing, Tsunade's hands fizzled out of green chakra and Yamato opened his eyes with an intensity that shocked even Kisame. His hands thrust into the ground with speeds that Kisame doubted even a taijutsu expert could have followed. For a second, nothing happened.

Then the ground erupted with an entanglement of roots that shot up, bound together into giant boughs, formidable trunks, and impenetrable canopies. It grew and grew far across the entirety of the ruddy brown rocky landscape, churning up the top of the monument with its force on its way to create a landing pad for the meteor chunk. They stopped just below the surface of the water Kisame was keeping together and entangled themselves even more than they were.

Their knotted branches overlapped and entangled in ways that nature never would have allowed. The trunks all grew in spirals and the branches were taught in several weaves that could have caught an entire continent's population and not have broken a single fiber. It looked like a series of nets kept at distance from each other by giant twisting columns of tree all submerged under a bubble of water and tilted to catch the fragment.

Kisame didn't know how much longer passed under that construction; he was too busy marveling at the sight of the twisting wood create the largest catcher's mitt ever created. And he wasn't one to marvel all too much either.

That period of general silence was broken with the sound of splintering trees and a great upheaval of water. What Kisame wasn't able to see past the grand trees was one of the greatest masses of earth and stone ever put into a single area slamming into the top net of the structure, instantly vaporizing the top portion of water with its heat and sending most of the rest in a flat spray all around the surrounding area. Kisame, Tsunade, and Yamato fell to their knees and eventually onto their elbows from the kinetic energy forced unto them. The wooden part of the structure creaked and groaned and threatened to blast apart, but the combination of sinewy ropes and materials combined with the hardened barks and wood kept it in place, if severely damaged.

Kisame got up to his feet first and grabbed the two downed Konoha shinobi around the waists. He didn't waste any time as he shot through the water like a torpedo, zipping straight out of the water and into the air with a big toothy grin on his face.

He landed on the top of the kage administration building with his back facing the brunt of the village and his head turned to the monument. Actually having caught the broken space rock, the bent and broken tree + water combination that managed to disperse the impact looked all the more impressive. In a great shudder, the back part of the tree finally gave way and sent the giant boulder tumbling away from Konoha.

Tsunade and Yamato go up laboriously, both running dangerously low on the chakra required to create such a feature.

"So what now?" Kisame asked, not bothering to look away from the still leaking wooden mitt.

Tsunade shook her head, not knowing. "I left my hardware in the office. Yamato?"

He shook his head as well, not trusting himself to open his mouth lest his stomach take that as a sign to empty itself of foodstuffs.

"Hardware?" Kisame asked.

"It'd take too long to explain," Tsunade replied, brushing off the water from her body as best as she could and walking to the edge of building overlooking Konoha.

00000000

Elsewhere

Kakashi landed.

00000000

Tsunade felt the all too familiar cold hand of anxiety grip her stomach as she gazed at the arc of the fifth meteor. There was nothing to be done about it. It was going to land and destroy the front portion of the gates and disrupt the complex sensory seal that was spread across the whole of Konoha. The village would be open to any outsiders that wanted to capitalize on their momentary weakness and they would be forced to go back onto high alert with genin being forced once again to brave dangerous missions for the sake of their homeland.

She took a deep breath to calm herself. It wasn't much, but at least they were out of immediate danger. If the meteor fragment she, Yamato, and Kisame managed to stop hadn't been taken down by them, almost the entire civilian, genin, and ancillary shinobi forces would have been killed under the rubble. There might be trouble in the future, but for now, at least everyone else was alright.

The fifth meteor fragment curved to the earth, uprooting trees and boulders alike with its crosswinds. Tsunade closed her eyes and waited for the eventual explosion that the impact was going to generate.

Except it never did.

The only sound it made was of wind whooshing around Konoha as the meteor completely missed its impact and even curved up and away from Konoha, eventually falling to the ground somewhere to the east of the village in unoccupied territory.

Whatever sense of victory she might have felt for even a moment was interrupted by a slow clap from behind her. Whirling around, she saw a man decked out in an ancient red armor with long black hair and purple ringed eyes walked his way to her. Kisame and Yamato were nowhere to be seen, though there was a smear of blood on the floor of the building that wasn't there before leading to a broken railing. Whatever happened must have been masked by the sound of the meteor passing by.

As the man drew closer, she could see his form in more detail. Cracks lined up his body and face. A sort of mocking sneer was his most prominent facial expression. But most importantly was his vicious aura of malice of hatred.

Tsunade would have taken a step back if she were capable of doing so, such was the feeling of despair that just looking at him made her feel.

"Congratulations," he said insincerely "You managed to avert the asteroid I sent your way, and in such a creative way too. You've had your fun, and I've had mine. Normally, I'd like to enjoy this body a bit more, but seeing as I'm sort of on a schedule, I'd like to present you with an ultimatum."

Madara began walking to her again. Sweat beaded on her brow as she began to envision all the different ways that he was no doubt capable of killing her in. She wanted to berate herself, to scold herself. Her brain knew it was just killing intent. Killing intent of a completely different level perhaps, but killing intent nonetheless. Even so, her body refused to move as he stepped closer and closer to her.

"Present me," he continued "With Naruto Uzumaki and his lover Fu, or else every single soul inside of Konoha will die a slow and painful death."

He stopped mere inches away from her. His eyes were wide open with the pupils as small as cornered prey's. He didn't look, sound, or feel anything close to a human.

Her eyes flicked to the side where a masked man set his hands to the ground. A big poof of smoke later and the Gedo statue was summoned right smack dab in the middle of Konoha, seven of its eyes completely open to the world, with one completely closed, and one cracked open a tinge.

Flanking its sides were eight other darkened figures, their forms not very distinct to her, as the giant humanoid thing was taking up the majority of her attention.

Madara waited for a tic or two for Tsunade to respond before raising his right hand and lowering it rapidly, a que for the nine interlopers to jump away and to the streets, fanning out in teams of twos and one three as they sought only two things: death and blood.

The sun by then was completely under the horizon and the sky was beginning to darken, showing the first stars of the night. The Uchiha smiled suddenly, thrusting his hand forward and piercing Tsunade's heart in one swoop. Blood gushed under his hand as he lifted her up by her ribcage and tossed her over the railing. She fell a few flights before landing with a muted thump, a ray of blood spread out beneath her.

Madara cleaned the blood from his hand distastefully as he crouched down and waited for the next phase of his plan to come.


	40. a step in the (right)(wrong) direction

Chapter 40

_Blood Corruption Level: 59/234_

_Draught of Rapid Regeneration: after ingestion, moderate to severe cuts, burns, abrasions, bone breaks, and internal bleeding will heal over the course of 20 seconds. Effectivity will change depending on the overall amount of damage done to the body. Blood Corruption +18_

Anko nearly sighed in relief as she felt her back begin to knit itself together from its completely shredded state. That wasn't something afforded to her, however, as she darted to the side, replacing her body with a drum of oil that was lit on fire. Whatever was charging her instead ran into the oil drum, creating a mini explosion and covering itself with a mixture of napalm and lemon juice.

Anko didn't know if adding lemon juice made the fire burn worse or not, but she liked to think that it did.

The charging beast ran, blinded by the fire, right through a two story building, causing an immediate collapse and burying itself under cement, wood, and effeminate furniture.

It didn't take long for the animal to get back up and shake off the rubble, more annoyed by the fire and debris than anything else. The animal in question looked like a rhinoceros with small wings on its back, purple ringed eyes, and a huge spike in the middle of its forehead.

Also, it was huge.

Anko expertly swiped a vial containing murky brown liquid by her thigh and pressed it to her neck. Although the vials all looked the same as they were uniformly displayed on her body, they were not all used the same way. Some were ingested, some rubbed on the skin, squirted in the eye, snorted up the nose, pumped into the leg, or, in this case, acted as a micro jet injector shot directly into the neck of the user.

_Tonic of Giant's Strength: Take on the strength of a giant. Strength stat of the user and the users summon animals are momentarily quintupled. Blood corruption +40_

The beastly rhinoceros made no attempt to intimidate her via menacing roars or evils glares. It acted more as a puppet than anything else. Something devoid of a soul, or even just base animal instincts.

With its legs locked, all muscles coiled like springs, it jumped out of the rubble and ran right at the snake user. Whispering something to herself, she shot her hands out and grand constrictors flowed from her sleeves, making no sound as they slithered across the earth and leapt at the charging animal's legs. They coiled and rolled, tangling themselves up faster than the eye could see, dancing with a beautiful precision, yet also a chaotic randomness.

Despite the show the snakes put on, they did no more than make the rhinoceros stumble under its weight and veer slightly to the left. Anko allowed a small smile come to her lips. There was nothing better than when a hastily put together plan came to fruition.

She grabbed the horn and rapidly pivoted her body around, using both her enhanced strength and the monster's momentum to lift it up in the air. Were anyone watching, they would have sworn that the world came to a standstill for a fraction of a second as the beast hung in the air only by the comparatively diminutive body of a human woman. The world sped up with a sudden jolt as Anko grunted with exertion and slammed the rhino down on its back with a mighty whump.

It struggled like any other wild animal would, but Anko held it place, grimacing as she did so. Snakes flowed freely from her sleeves now, surrounding the rhino completely until nearly all the greyish skin was hidden under the coiling bodies of giant constrictors.

Not having to keep the beast down anymore, Anko fell backwards on her butt and watched with a grim fascination as the rhino gave a few more frantic struggles before succumbing to the throes of asphyxiation and vanishing into smoke. The snakes fell into each other and began the long process of untangling themselves.

This process gave Anko time to take stock in her situation and look to the kage administration where the Gedo statue that was looming over the city like a piece of gaudy architecture only minutes prior had vanished completely.

A large shadow passed over her, blocking out the moon and drawing her eyes to the sky where an equally large drill beaked bird was flying around with one of its oversized eyes facing the ground. It wasn't hard to figure out that it was doing reconnaissance of some sort and it appeared that someone else had that figured too, as evidenced when a shining purple arrow flew out from somewhere in the village and pierced its eye. It squawked once out of surprise before its chest and wings were turned into pincushions by more of the same arrows. Before it could fall out of the sky, its body was replaced by smoke as it desummoned away.

To her far left, there appeared to be hundreds of flying humanoid contraptions taking turns in slicing their opponents to shreds. Behind her were sounds of air explosions. To her forward-right were floating paper avatars covered in blood. Her forward-left was filled with combustion explosions and a lot of shouting.

And that was only what was immediately apparent to her. From what she could tell, this wasn't a full on invasion like what she faced three years ago; it was looking more like a coordinated strike of highly skilled individuals. If that were to be the case, then they didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell in taking Konoha. At worse, they could cripple the infrastructure so that Konoha faced a slow death, but even that was a longshot.

Whatever the case may be, she didn't know where she was needed most. If she went to an area where Konoha shinobi were only just cleaning up, then she wasted time on them when she could have been somewhere they really needed help. So, first things first: find the chain of command.

By then, the snakes had all gotten themselves detangled and had found their way back into her sleeves. She whispered a few more words under her breath and like spaghetti noodles haphazardly thrown on the kitchen floor, innumerable amounts of tiny little snakes tumbled out of her sleeves and fanned out, each going their own way at a pace one wouldn't expect to find from such a small animal.

Anko looked at her hand with a dissatisfied glare. Her veins were looking very prominent against her translucent skin dimpled with purple splotches. A side effect of blood corruption. She could feel it a little in the breath of her lungs and a sort of weakness permeating from her stomach. Already, she had ingested far too much of her consumables and the beginning of what was caustic to her body was starting to flare up. If she wanted to keep up with the big guys, she was going to have to start playing it smart and only take a consumable if it was absolutely necessary or could decide victory.

She began sneaking in the shadows on her way to Kage Administration more out of habit than a fear of being caught unawares. Protocol clearly dictated that the kage would be directing the battle from there with their crystal ball should there ever be an actual invasion, but like most plans of mice and men, they often went awry. Honestly, she'd be surprised if Tsunade was anywhere near the building, but it was a start.

Anko knew she shouldn't feel it, but there was a small pit of worry growing in her stomach over the fate of her boyfriend. She could recognize a rasengan technique from anywhere and having it shot across the village at the size of a small house didn't exactly hide its presence. Naruto was in the village somewhere and she didn't know where and that little fact was driving her up the walls. Call it an irrational mothering worry or an overprotective girlfriend worry, but it was absolutely there whether she wanted it to be or not. Her body moved on autopilot as she contemplated what may or may not have happened to him amidst all the strife of this new conflict. It wasn't healthy and she knew it. Yet as soon as she tried to divert her attention back to stealthily reaching administration, the worry came back with a vengeance.

She'd seen his guidebook and knew just how capable he was on his own, but that didn't stop the worry from continuing to grow. Wherever he was, she only hoped to god that he was okay, or at the very least, kicking ass.

00000000

A few moments prior

The night truly was beautiful. The ocean was practically still, only coming up the lowest part of the shoreline with a sort of half-hearted sleepiness that was reflected in the stars and the moon, which, for all their grandness, would have brought a smile to anyone's lips. They wouldn't think about the vastness of space or just how big the moon really is. How tiny they are and significant their lives. They wouldn't think about what was worrying them and the problems of the past, present or future. They would surely just take in the serene night air with a content, heavy sigh and perhaps slowly drift off to sleep under the peaceful gaze of the man on the moon.

A flash of yellow was all the warning that serene ocean had before a war was brought to its doorsteps.

The Gedo statue remained planted in the ground at the hips, gazing across the ocean while two others tussled unseen underneath its chin.

Naruto and Madara remained in perfect concert when it came to speed and power. They neither flitted across the new battlefield nor brought out any of their scenery changing powers. Their taijutsu fight remained in practically a six foot wide circle of flurrying limbs and churning sand.

It wasn't really much of a fight and both of them knew it. They were merely testing each other, seeing how much they would need to exhibit in order to beat the other. A low level detection of ability.

Their 'fight' crescendo'd up to a point where they were both locked hand in hand and pushed against the other seeking to overpower the other. With chakra roots firmly keeping their feet in the ground, they were free to build up their strength second after second until between their hands was enough pressure to crack apart a mountain.

"What do you want?" Naruto ground out, his face a mask of fury and confusion.

Madara, blank as ever, said "A world without conflict."

Whatever Naruto was expecting him to say, it was not that. A momentary lapse in concentration was all Madara needed to overpower Naruto and send a straight punch directly onto his jaw, making the Uzumaki bound across the sand like a rubber ball down a flat cement pathway. Madara appeared above Naruto and sent an elbow to his back, forcing his body into the ground and creating a shower of displaced sand.

Naruto rolled out of the way and tried to throw a kick at Madara's head, but his foot was caught mere inches away from his purple, vacant eyes. Madara lifted Naruto up by the foot and threw him into the sky. Appearing above him again, Naruto was prepared this time and had both arms crossed against his chest as Madara double kicked Naruto downwards, now with much more force than before.

His body hit the sea with a resounding clap. It was a mistake. He should have let the water take some of his momentum, but he accidentally covered his body in chakra so as to not break the surface of the water. It wasn't his intention to do so, something Madara took great pleasure in as he gently floated down to look onto the beaten body of his 'greatest obstacle.'

"I was told you were much stronger," was all Madara said.

Naruto achingly got up and shot the Uchiha a venomous glare. "A world without conflict?" Naruto asked, brushing aside Madara's comment on his strength.

Madara nodded. "This world is too focused on the prospects of winning and losing. I believe a true peace can be obtained, but not as it is now. Things will change and I will be the one to change them."

A 'world without conflict' sounded way too good to be true. Naruto was reminded of a movie he'd seen as a kid that featured a vindictive genie and a rich, greedy king. Whatever wish the king made was turned back on him. Words took on entirely different meanings while making the statement only technically true.

"There's a lot of ways to end conflict. Killing everyone, for example. The world can't be in conflict if there aren't any people on it," Naruto knew he sounded more paranoid than he had meant for it to sound, but this sort of prolonged explanation was the only thing that could get him a glimpse of his plan.

Madara smiled evilly. "Don't think of me as your storybook villain. This reality that we live in is a product of human nature honed over millions of years of evolution that was suddenly given world-breaking power and a sense of entitlement to goods and services that would have been simply inconceivable to any of our ancestors. Of course there's conflict. It was naïve to believe that humankind could live together side by side without the desire to murder."

"So what're you going to do about it?"

"I'm going to change reality," Madara stated. It was one of the few times during their conversation that his face changed at all and this one was special in the way that he adopted a haughty tone and superior stance, as if he was expecting Naruto to bow down and kiss his toes.

"Sorry, I'm not following."

Madara cupped his face with his hand. "I shouldn't have expected anything else," he took in a rapid breath of air and was looking to go on a tirade-cum-explanation, but he lost his mojo partway through his gear up and reverted back to his usual blank persona. "You wouldn't have gotten it anyway. As much as I enjoy your conversation abilities, I'm going to kill you now and change reality to what it was always meant to be."

Naruto caught the fist that appeared out of nowhere with a smirk quirking his lips. His body glowed a bright white for a few seconds before the now visible concentric sealing array all over his body shattered into oblivion. Madara's eyes widened in surprise only fast enough for Naruto to catch a glimpse of them before Naruto twirled him around and flung his body straight at the Gedo statue faster than sound could travel, creating an audible crack as his back was bent in ways that no normal human's back was meant to bend on the statue's long, narrow beard feature.

00000000

It was a long stake. Black and bloodied a scarlet red. It entered Shikamaru's chest and exited out his back, neatly piercing all four chambers of his heart in one go. It was a testament to how skilled and devoted he was to taking down his opponent that his hands found themselves wrapped around the perpetrator's hands in a vice clamp before his body could respond.

Shikamaru's hands only hindered Hidan for a fraction of a second before the spike was ripped out his chest, sending small chunks of gore and droplets of blood flinging across the ground in a circular arc. Shikamaru swayed once, twice, then collapsed under his weight, dead to the world.

A shadow passed over Hidan's expressionless body. He cracked apart under the sudden force of Chouji's foot slamming itself to the ground, completely flattening him and the strange ashy paper that his body appeared to be made of. That would give them a good 10 seconds or so of respite.

Ino raced to Shikamaru's downed body and poured a creamy salve into his heart wound.

_Phoenix Cream: brings the recently deceased back to life with half hit points and half chakra._

Shikamaru coughed loudly and struggled up to a standing position.

"I only have two more left," she warned as seriously as she could with a flutter of fear perpetually scratching at the bottom of her throat.

Shikamaru nodded and backed away a few steps, giving the swirling paper some space. "Let's review."

"It can't die," Chouji said, now at a normal height.

"Mind transfer doesn't work," Ino said.

"Regenerates completely within 10 seconds of complete destruction," Shikamaru said.

"Strong," Chouji said.

"Has weird blood magic; don't get your blood taken by him," Ino said.

"No emotions," Shikamaru said.

"How… do we kill it?" Chouji asked.

For once in his life, Shikamaru was truly at a loss for words. "It's a perfect opponent. Doesn't die. Doesn't think. Keeps coming back. Strong as all hell… trap it. Reduce its mobility and wait it out until we have a better option."

By the time Shikamaru had stopped talking, Hidan had completely regenerated and was back on the offensive.

_Perk: Iron Curtain: all physical damage done to the user will be reduced by half. Armor effectiveness increases two-fold. Sharp edged weapons have difficulty in piercing the user's skin._

_Perk: Apotheosis of Mad Science: the user's body will become somewhat ethereal, lowering chances of getting injured by half as well as damage done by the user by half._

_Perk: Shadows' Plaything: the user becomes one with darkness, becoming able to control shadows at whim at one tenth of the chakra requirement as usual. Only effective at night._

Chouji unsealed two shields that were strapped to either arm, both as tall as himself and in the shape of a curved rectangle. Ino's form became hazy and hard to pin down. She ran off to somewhere to the side of Hidan. Shikamaru was welcomed into the embrace of the shadows, effectively vanishing from view.

The Akamichi clanged his shields together and shouted "I'M OVER HERE YOU BIG DUMMY!"

The three members of team 10 always worked with each other like a well-oiled machine and as a consequence nearly never had to communicate to get an effective synergy. This was no more apparent than in this situation.

Hidan impassively walked up to Chouji and began laying into the armored teen. His triple scythe bounded and scraped against the hard metal of the Roman style ballistic shields with speeds that made it look like there was a small red tornado around him at all times. Even just a sidelong glancing of the flat side of his weapon would completely obliterate the body of any regular human and Chouji was taking the beating like a champ.

Well, it wasn't really like a beating to him anyway. He was the one who played the role of the Tank. This one fact was drilled into him time and time again way past the point that he needed to be reminded of such a fact. His job was not to kill the opponent; it was to get the attention and to not die while the rest of the teammates made preparations to kill it dead.

Chouji's movements might have looked simple and somewhat frantic to the casual bystander, but the truth couldn't be farther from that supposition. His eyes tracked the scythe faster than Hidan could swing it through the tiny slit between the shields and his arms moved not only to block the scythe, but also to parry and slide it away, lessening the amount of energy he exerted in the process.

At first Hidan continued to walk toward him, his body telling whatever was controlling it that the defender would continue to give up ground during his relentless assault, but that was proven wrong very early on in their 'fight'. Chouji backed not one step away from where he first taunted Hidan. Not even his feet had moved at all.

A hazy fog rolled in up to his midsection, letting him see the continuous movements of the scythe, but obscuring the dead man's feet and legs. The next second, Hidan's body pitched forward slightly and his attention diverted was diverted to whatever it was behind him that hit him. He lifted the scythe to swipe at whatever had struck him unseen, but was knocked forward even more by Chouji's shields.

"NO. I'M YOUR QUARRY."

Hidan got back to his regular stance and resumed his assault with a renewed vigor. From inside his sleeve, came a spike which he used in tandem with his scythe. It made the individual swings slower and easier to predict, but there were now two directions of attack that Chouji had to keep track of.

Time and time again, this process repeated itself. Hidan would get struck from behind by Ino, try to attack her, get his attention brought back to Chouji, and then change fighting styles somewhat. It soon became apparent what Ino was getting him with as the shifting of the dead man's torso revealed depleted syringes poking out of his back.

Hidan became sluggish, though still undaunted in his dogged pursuit of blood and death. His blows hit harder, but they also became slower such that a normal human could see the arcs of the scythe whistling through the air and the now multiple stakes held at different clinch points in his body being brought forward to stab the hulk of a teen.

Eventually even that petered out. His movements all but stopped and he began walking like a zombie. It was only now that Chouji began to move backwards. His backtrack kept the zombie shambling towards him at a steady and unattainable rate.

The shadows that crowded the ground and walls grew and thickened. Like slow rolling waves of tar, they fell down and climbed on top of themselves, stripping the world of color that it had left. Even the sky wasn't free from their inescapable march, blotting out the moon, the only source of light left for Chouji, and sweeping away the stars in the sky.

Finally taking his eyes away from one of the zombie brothers, Chouji ran through the wall of blackness, feeling like he was going straight through several man sized spider webs and out the other side, blinking away the fuzzies in his vision and swinging around with both shields facing where Hidan was, just in case something was wrong of course.

The bubble of inky blackness grew and swelled until it finally collapsed like a rapidly deflating balloon. The walls crumpled inwards until all that was left standing was a vaguely human looking statue, barely able to move at all even as it tried with all its might. Eventually, even that too fell into itself until all that remained was a perfectly round circle about a meter in diameter neatly stuck to the ground.

An arm burst out of the side and gripped the loose earth. Slowly, as if the shadows really did have the consistency of black pitch, Shikamaru was brought forth back to the world of the corporeal, swaying slightly under a lack of balance and mobility.

Chouji ran forward and grabbed him from under the armpits clumsily, slightly impeded by the shields still strapped to either arm, then hoisted the Nara up and out of the circle of shadows.

"Thanks," he said breathlessly, patting his dear friend on the shoulder as he was being put back onto his feet on solid ground "I hate doing that so much."

As anyone might be able to understand, literally _becoming_ something else, especially something as vague as shadows, would leave anyone uncomfortable in their real body for a few moments.

Ino landed from somewhere above them and became corporeal as well, but with an annoyed and somewhat scared look on her face.

"Report," Shikamaru said feebly.

"Almost none of my science experiments worked on him, and the few that did are ones that take rarer ingredients. If we're going to be fighting another one of those freaks, I need to stock back up at the warehouse."

"He doesn't attack like a human attacks," Chouji said.

Shikamaru nodded. "Whatever the case may be, he'll be down for a bit. First order of business, get to warehouse. Second order of business, find Lady Tsunade. Third order of business, beat this fucking game."

00000000

Even at their most relaxed, the Inuzuka were known all across Konoha and the Elemental Nations as being a boisterous and fierce family. They were as loyal to their country and village as their partners were to them. Alone, they fought as hard as they could to protect their teammates, or to dole out sweet sweet vengeance against the people that did them in. This ferocity was only compounded when their blood relatives were brought into the fold with them as well.

Hana, Tsume, and Kiba were ducking behind a building with their dog companions with a slight vantage at the porcelain white dragon roaring in the sky. They were ruffed up and disheveled with burn marks all over their clothing and each gingerly holding onto one appendage or another. Hana might have been able to help out with their injuries, but she wasn't the best at medical ninjutsu and she needed a lot of time to get anything productive done.

Since Deidara was one of the fastest members of Akatsuki, he ran into the ninja running from the walls first and was summarily enveloped by a bubble of angry and confused Konoha ninja wanting the fight to be over as quickly as possible. Those first few minutes were bloody indeed. No one knew they were fighting against an exploding reincarnation with no emotions and a penchant for destruction. One wouldn't be able look anywhere without seeing a broken body or a piece of a limb laying on the ground or stuck to the side of a building. When the numbers began petering out, the chunin ran from their fight with one excuse in their mind or the other. And it wasn't like anyone could blame them either. Whatever their specialty was, it wasn't going to be of any help to defeating the mad bomber.

After the chunin were the taijutsu and genjutsu specialists. Getting up close and personal didn't do much against an enemy that could explode at will and not be affected by illusions in the slightest didn't give the genjutsu jonin any incentives either.

There were still a few ninjutsu jonin somewhere around the Inuzukas, but they too were hiding out and trying to come up with a plan to defeat the bomber.

"What do we do now?" Kiba whispered, as if the bomber could hear him speak from all the way up in the sky as he was.

"Wait for reinforcements?" Hana suggested.

"I do believe I raised wolves, not kittens," Tsume growled out, though her heart wasn't in it.

"Well what's your genius plan then?" Kiba asked.

"It was something from the last war. I thought he was just using exploding tags, but on our last push I saw his hands. There're mouths on them. It's a special kinjutsu that infuses soft materials with his elemental nature."

"So what?" Kiba asked.

"His elemental nature is a kekai genkai. Explosive release. There's a reason those hand things were called a kinjutsu 'cuz it's really deadly. It's earth based, so we just need some lightning."

"Do we have lightning?"

"You mean to tell me that all your time dicking around with your friends going on your 'raids', that you never picked up even one lightning technique?!"

"Well what about you? You're the fucking matriarch. You've seen war! You don't have anything sparky in your ability set?"

"Calm down!" Hana ordered, keeping the peace between her small family of three like she always did. "I got Kakashi to teach me one a while back." She unholstered a kunai and did a few handseals before a soft humming filled the air as the kunai was filled with enough volts of electricity to be considered a mini stun gun. "It's not that powerful, but it should do the trick, right?"

"I sure hope so," Tsume said as she peered out from behind the building at the bomber, now bereft of targets and simply using structures as cannon fodder.

"I've got a plan," she said suddenly to her children.

00000000

Deidara's body leered down from the head of his C2 dragon, throwing down clay bombs himself whenever he saw a slow target and using the mass from the dragon's remaining tail to fire at the fast targets. More often than not, they managed to get away, but that didn't dissuade the artist from painting the ground black and red with the scorched remains of those who weren't fast enough.

It was a grisly sight to be sure.

His head snapped to his immediate right where there were two fast movers pouncing across the roofs in a circular pattern. The dragon belched out smaller versions of themselves which sped down the buildings below and detonated, sending huge plumes of smoke and fire up into the air.

From the smoke, the two targets dashed through, leaving behind thin trails of dispersing smoke with no apparent injuries to their bodies. Deidara couldn't emote, seeing as his personality had been sapped, but if he could, he'd be giving a slight grimace of annoyance at the perseverance of those two annoying targets.

The dragon swooped down low and Deidara jumped off, already slinging grapeshot bombs that turned the roofs into choppy rubble and hopefully got at least a few hits on those two.

_Ferocity of the Wilderness: strength and speed is boosted by 10 points for every member of the party in the immediate vicinity of the user, 20 points for any ninken, and 25 points for any family members. Effects stack._

Kiba and Akamaru drilled through the smaller bombs before they had a chance to explode, sending them bouncing away to explode elsewhere and leaving them completely unscathed. Unlike before, though, they didn't pursue an attack. They kept their distance away from the zombie, his optimal fighting range and their suboptimal fighting range, waiting for his next attack.

He didn't disappoint.

Whatever he had in his seemingly never ending supply of explosive clay and formations in which to use them was thrown, lobbed, or spat out at the Inuzuka and his dog. And to their credit, they fared fairly well against him. However, Deidara was nothing if not a scrupulous and cunning individual even without his explosive personality. He played them like a master tennis player. Every shot he threw out was one that was carefully timed and thought out beforehand, corralling them right where he wanted them to go before he could knock them out with a serve exactly where they weren't. Each explosion was used to catch them off guard for the next one, and the next one, and the next one until they couldn't keep up anymore.

They had to resort to their Fang Over Fang technique to make sure they were fast enough to get out of his traps. They flew and flung across the rooftops, drilling into walls, terraces, and windows. Jumping through alleyways and coming to sudden stops, feigning left but really going right. Entire city blocks began to crumble under the fierceness of their frantic running away.

Despite their bolstered reserves from their perks and power leveling, even they had a limit to be reached.

Kiba got caught once on the side of his thigh and Akamaru got slightly scorched on the side of his face. Their fight might have been going differently if Kiba ever got out his Deidara's optimal fighting range, but he never did. If Deidara weren't a zombie, he might have questioned this little facet of their fight, but seeing as he wasn't, he continued undaunted to try his best to turn them into meat giblets.

Just when he was about to score the final hit against the slowed human, a direct plantation of a spider golem to his face, both the human and dog were unceremoniously grabbed and tossed away, presumably to safety by a woman and her ferocious looking canine companion, who turned into a horizontal tornado and bore into the spider, destroying it before it could blow up.

_Mother Nature: all base stats are doubled when fighting alongside the user's children._

Tsume growled a little. She may not have liked it, but it was necessary to keep Deidara attended to by fighting in shifts. Whenever there were attempts to overwhelm him with manpower, he simply blew up and killed a lot of the people who were there regardless of what range they were at. But when he was pursuing smaller groups, he only exploded when they got near to his body.

Kiba had managed to delay him a whole five minutes, a time which could be considered an eternity to ninja whose lives often rested in split second increments, but Tsume didn't know if that was going to be enough for them all to get out of there in one piece.

Whatever the case may be, she was going to be getting her pups out of there alive and whole, whatever it took.

Tsume's replacement of Kiba went well for all of twenty seconds before shit got real in a hurry. While she was stronger, faster, had larger reserves and more control, that only made Deidara's zombie body try even harder against the matriarch to take her down, even if that meant enlisting the help of his dragon companion.

If Kiba's and Akamaru's stalling strategy had involved desperation and a complete disregard for physical property, his mother's stalling strategy ramped that up by a factor of seven. She was forced to run circles around buildings as they were being torn down. Throw kunai at him with enough force to bore foot wide holes in his chest if that would cause him to falter for even a half a second. Run straight through the gauntlet of explosions and make it out still standing.

A wide exploding bug detonated near the back of her head somewhere in the fight, blasting out her eardrums and making her deaf for all intents and purposes.

The only thing she could feel were rumbles as Deidara's bombs detonated or as his dragon made another dive bomb attempt at her.

If Kiba managed to last five minutes, she was going to be lucky if was going hit the two minute marker. The addition of another 'fighter' to the equation along with her new loss of a major sense was going to a massive handicap to her.

She and Kuromaru landed on the ground hard from their spinning tornadoes, peeling off into a full on sprint. Running past the slight feeling of a grumbling in the air, Tsume didn't realize that Kuromaru had spoken until it was too late. He dashed off to the side, expecting her to as well.

Tsume didn't. She stepped on a hidden mine.

Everything turned red and black and white as her body went through the rigmarole of distorted feelings that one gets when their legs suddenly gets turned to red mist.

The first real thing she saw when she landed on the ground was the moon. Her body was numb and shell-shocked, but the pain was quick on her and bounded up what was left of her legs and up her spine.

The dragon, now down on explosive materials, passed over the moon in a circular pattern, like a scavenging bird looking for an easy meal.

She could see the mad bomber on top of a roof looking down on her helpless body. She tried to move her hands to crawl her body away, but they fell from under her and couldn't support anything, much less most of the body of a full grown woman.

It seemed that she didn't need to drag herself away as Kuromaru decided to do that for her.

Not a moment too soon as the area where she used to be exploded in another plume of fire and smoke.

Deidara fell to the ground and ran after them, quickly catching up and throwing another motley of bombs at the running wolfdog. Kuromaru tossed Tsume out of the range of the bombs and tried to jump after her, but one of the smaller, faster ones caught him in the side and bowled him over, exposing his ribs and muscles to the sky. He tried to get up as well, but his paws couldn't get any footing and he fell to the ground, unable to get up.

Deidara advanced upon the both of them with his cold, zombie-like face. Tsume grimaced again and tried to crawl, not away, but to her longtime friend and companion. They'd been through a lot together, but this was looking to be their last exploit. This time, she did manage to get her body moving, though that was only because she was a suitable incline to do so.

It was weird not being able to hear anything as she saw that unfeeling body of a man walk down the road to her. Made it feel unreal. Like it was happening somewhere out of her realm of control.

She lost the last of her strength when she got to Kuromaru's side, still in full view of Deidara. If there was one thing she was going to regret, it was going to be not buying her children enough time.

The body of Deidara seemed to take a sick pleasure in slowly going through the process of creating a singular bomb, but that was probably just Tsume's brain dying and making it seem that way. She could see the bomb in his hand. It was a bird. Kinda looked like an owl, but she couldn't be certain. He cocked his arm to the side and thrust his torso forward, about to throw the explosive capsule, then he… stopped.

Tsume was sure someone had accidentally pressed the pause button on life the picture was so still. Mid step, face still, clothes hanging on his body without moving to the still air. No dust settled. No buildings fell. The world was still.d

A Hana ran from one of the alleyways and buried a kunai into the chest of Deidara. Then another stabbed it into his midsection, then another one stabbed one into his neck. Were she able to hear, the sounds of crackling electricity would have been resounding in her eardrums.

_Dopplegang: The user's ninken has the ability to fully transform into a complete replica of the user. Everything from speech patterns to advanced elemental techniques they may not be able to otherwise perform are copied in these forms. Requires multiple ninken._

Deidara was lowered to the ground, exposing one last Hana with her hand gripped on a kunai up to the hilt in his back. Tsume couldn't think up convoluted plans like certain other schemers that she knew. Distract the enemy in order to give Hana and the Haimaru brothers enough time to build up the power in their technique to stop him was just about the most she was capable of.

And it looked like it worked.

Hana shouted something at Tsume, but she couldn't hear it. The four had to stay there to keep him immobilized with lightning chakra, so they couldn't do what they wanted to do and rush to their mother's side.

Two heavy impacts were felt to near her as Kiba turned her over onto her back. Already darkness was beginning to encroach on her vision. The last thing she saw before blood loss killed her was the sight of her son crying.

00000000

_Offensive Bias: when not wearing armor, strength and speed is tripled._

_Defensive Bias: techniques that are defensive in nature take no chakra to perform._

Neji was like a blur on their little microcosm of a battlefield. His hands were invisible whenever he landed for longer than a second. Parts of puppets began to radiate away from him like chips forcibly ejected out a wood chipper. He couldn't be touched no matter how hard the puppets hit or how fast they were. Although that was more to do with his cousin than his own ability at dodging them.

Hinata, having received the defensive perk after reaching level 50, began training in whatever defensive type techniques that the Hyuuga had, which was a surprisingly large amount. Since hers and Neji's perks were so similar, they found that their synergy was greater together than with their respective teams and began training together far more regularly than before.

It was a system as old as time. Neji doled out the pain while Hinata kept him from getting hurt. Simple, but more importantly, effective.

Ever since they found themselves surrounded by the hundred puppet user, they fell into their usual stance of Neji going out and agroing the enemy to him, then falling back to Hinata where he could deal with them as she kept the enemy from hurting her cousin with well-timed mud walls, spinning rotations, and even her own version of pained justice.

Even so, their battle was going poorly for them. It didn't seem to matter how many they took out, as there were always more on the wings. There were also stranger puppets in the bunch, like the one that moved like a bug and had a scorpion tail sprouting from its back, or the couple that always attacked together with unearthly claws coming out of their appendages, or the one that controlled iron sand.

Their main goal was to get to the one that was feeding chakra to the brunt of the force, but 'he' was far more capable than the others and appeared human as well. Or, human enough to not be made out of wooden parts. He also appeared to be invincible and had astounding control over the use of the puppets.

It became a battle of attrition with the Hyuugas on the losing side. Wave after wave of unrelenting peon types with the surprise no one likes in the form of the Third Kazekage showing up trying to poison them with his crushing sand. It never got past Hinata's extended rotations, but that didn't stop the Hiruko puppet from trying to skewer her or the parents from giving Neji a hug.

As the battle wore on minute by minute, Hinata and Neji found themselves working with both offense and defense just to stay alive, lowering their efficacy quite a bit.

"We can't hold out much longer!" Neji shouted out after only just dodging Hiruko's scorpion tail and sending it away with a few palm strikes.

"I know," Hinata grunted, shoving a glowing palm into the face of a peon puppet and blowing its head apart.

They were forced back to back, palm strike to palm strike only to keep the blades from piercing their skin before help arrived in the form the beautiful blue beasts of Konoha.

_The Fire of Youth: ailments dealing with old age do not affect the user. The user is also rarely fatigued and retains an ability akin that of the prime of his youth._

_Genius of Grinding: experience gain and attribute skill grinding takes half the amount of time that it does for anyone else._

With a shout of "DYNAMIC ENTRY!" the puppets pooling around the two struggling Hyuuga were blasted back, giving the four a small time to regroup before the puppets were back on them.

Somehow, they were going to have to find a way to take down the main puppet if they were ever going to find a way stop this fight.

"Konoha will not fall to you," Gai said solemnly. His hands fell on top of each other in a cross formation. Blue chakra began to leak out of his body as his skin was turned red and his hair lifted up from the force of the chakra being expelled from the body.

"SEVENTH GATE: GATE OF WONDER"

00000000

_Saint of the Battlefield: All healing type ninjutsu is doubled in efficacy when performed by the user and healing takes half as long to accomplish. The user also attains a motherly aura despite personality or appearance which boosts popularity with children and adults who have mother complexes._

Sakura felt the familiar uncomfortable warmth of a sweat rag being used to wipe her brow of sweat. It might have been refreshing at first, but under the stale air of the monument where everything was starting to get unbearably warm from the amount of bodies pressing against each other, wiping her brow did little more than make it less slick and interrupt her work.

She didn't have the heart to tell the poor genin who was doing it periodically every thirty seconds or so. He was one more unexpected rumbling away from a nervous breakdown and panic had a tendency to spread faster than any air born virus.

So she put up with it.

Under her hands there was always somebody. At first, she'd been put in charge of keeping everyone safe and orderly under the monument seeing as she couldn't do anything to help stop a meteor shower. She accepted, reluctantly, and had been healing minor cuts, scrapes, and raw skin ever since.

Things started to get hectic once the very nonmeteor-like explosions started loosing sprinklings of dust over the heads of the civilian and genin populations. It wasn't soon after that critically injured shinobi started trickling in with the help of lower ranked shinobi who looked spooked out of their minds. Sakura always intended to go out there and help fight whatever battle was going on once the load died down on the medic ninja, but that never happened.

Already almost thirty minutes past when the explosions started happening and there were still people being brought into the monument for help. Usually, this would be an erroneous breach in protocol, but the majority of noncombat shinobi were in the monument and not supporting the fighting force, so she could overlook it. Also, if the enemy, whoever they were, hadn't gone after the noncombatants by now, they didn't find it high on their to-do list.

The man under her hands stirred slightly and was brought back to awareness. As soon as her genin assistant realized this, he dragged the man away on a stretcher and guided another near death case in front of her.

Sakura sighed slightly as she got to work, idly noting how her assistant wiped her brow again with mild annoyance. She didn't want to be in there, but someone had to take care of the people.

00000000

The two purple and red Susanoo avatars paced around each other looking for any sort of opening in the other's stance. Their little circle of destruction already reduced the surrounding buildings way past the point of being considered rubble, and to where it looked like a steamroller with a heavy temper came around and decided that it liked everything flat. Sasuke didn't know how long they'd been fighting or how many moments of temporary respite came from the lapses in his brother's corpse's attention. _This_ was the way that his fight with Itachi was supposed to go at first. Not fighting him at his weakest state debilitated by disease and sentimental values.

So why did he feel numb inside at the look of his brother's black sclera?

Itachi didn't have the time to put himself under a genjutsu before he had his personality taken away, so it was looking like his and Sasuke's reunion wasn't going to be as much of a tearjerker than what it normally would have been.

Before either had the chance to rend Konoha to the ground further as they tried to kill each other, two people impacted the ground near Sasuke's feet. One much heavier than the other with a scaled sword completely unrolled and held menacingly in his hands. His face, shark-like and blue, glanced at the other person who landed.

"Who're you supposed to be?" Kisame asked.

The man seemed to be a cripple, with his walking stick and bandages covering his arm and right eye, but exuded an aura of pure intimidation.

"No one important," Danzo said slowly, unwrapping his arm and undoing the various safety measures in place to keep the transplanted eyes from using up chakra when they weren't needed. "Just someone who loves his country and wants to keep it safe."

Kisame didn't buy it, but seeing as he wasn't a walking zombie and appeared at least more capable than any of the panicking chunin, decided not to comment further on the matter.

"Oi, Sasuke, why don't you let us two take care of Itachi? Your buddy looks like he could use some help." Off in the far distance, way past the horizon line and in the direction of the coast, it looked like there was a forest fire. Anyone with a trained eye, however, could plainly see that there were more things to be scared of. Things like explosions and chakra lasers. It didn't take a scholar to come to the conclusion that that's where Naruto was.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. When had that started? How long had been fighting?

"Sasuke-kun," Danzo said tersely.

Sasuke looked down at the aged member of society as if he were only just then recognizing his existence. It didn't look like it would take much to kill him. Just stamp a foot down and crush him like a bug. Ensnare him in a mind breaking illusion. Catch him on fire with never ending black flames.

The golden arm band clanked to the ground with a somber note of finality to it. The bandages around his eye fluttered to the ground, showing Shisui's eye to the world.

That eye seemingly pierced through the murky purple armor of Sasuke's Susanoo with a look that he'd never forget.

"We'll talk later," Danzo continued.

As soon as the last word left his mouth, Sasuke looked away and began bounding across Konoha to where Naruto was.

Kisame looked at him go with his mouth slightly agape. "You're one scary motherfucker, aren't you?"

Danzo's facial expression didn't change, but there was a sort of unnatural huffing coming from his chest, probably his form of laughing. "You have no idea."

00000000

Fu wrangled the last heart to the ground. It was the earth heart and that little tidbit of information came across very heavily as it tried to pry her off its writhing tentacly mass. Every piece of it that wasn't truncated abruptly from something that previously happened in the fight straightened out and shot forward at her, hoping to pierce her hard exoskeletal armor.

Most of them bounded off, a few got wedged in small, vulnerable chinks in her armor, but one did manage to hit her upper thigh and sink a few inches into her exposed skin. Fu hissed and ground her teeth in pain and frustration, mostly at herself. That part of her armor got blasted off by a combined assault of the fire, wind, and electricity masks and she'd forgotten to regenerate it.

Purple chitin enveloped her leg and snapped together, severing the tentacle and removing the tip of it in one motion. This pain only egged her on farther as she began ripping and tearing the tentacles off with her bare hands. They fell to the side and writhed like snakes with their heads cut off. Every time she removed a bunch of them covering its 'face', even more fell around it in a pitiful attempt to delay the inevitable.

Fu silently screamed in frustration and launched her head forward with a suddenness that the heart wasn't expecting. The Hercules beetle horn that usually adorned her head like a decoration complexly caved in the mask and continued through and out of the mass, skewering the main heart in the process.

Fu pitched forward and fell onto her hands and knees. Usually the armor would get reabsorbed back into her body, but she was too tired even for that. They lost their adhesive quality and fell off all in one go, leaving a full body armor carapace on top of the representation of the last vestiges of resistance from their latest enemy.

Getting up slowly and hissing slightly at the smarting of her thigh, Fu limped forward at a pace that she would have found laughable in any other situation. She was in the middle of a somewhat depressed crater surrounded on all sides by the shattered, sliced up, and just plain broken remains of Kakuzu's five elemental hearts. At the lip of the crater, Jiraiya was working on sealing Kakuzu, the only part of him that did manage to regenerate, they found out.

Jiraiya turned around just in time to see Fu limp up to him. He was going full on sage mode with both Ma and Pa on his shoulders supporting the jutsu. Normally, they'd let it go once he was out of immediate combat, but no one knew just how many more zombified freaks there were out there, so they let it keep going just in case.

Kakuzu's broken mandibles were the last thing to go under the wrappings of Jiraiya's emergency sealing materials. A tag was the last thing to go on before he was completely contained and thrown in with the rest of the sealed reincarnates.

Jiraiya held out a steadying arm, which Fu accepted gratefully. "Are you okay to keep going on?"

"Yeah Yeah," Fu said, waving him off as she did so. "Just need some more rest, then I'll be up in a jiff."

Jiraiya laid her down as gently as he could, but she was unconscious before she hit the ground.

Ma whacked Jiraiya on the head with her cane. "Why can't you show the same tenacity that she has?!"

"I'm old. I'll get an aneurism and die." While he did only say that to hopefully not get another whacking by either Ma or Pa, he really couldn't see how Fu managed to keep up the way she did. She practically fought ten battles alone while he provided support against some of the strongest people in the world. Not even her guidebook could explain the insane levels in which she fought. So it was no wonder that running on empty for so long finally rendered her unconscious.

Nothing was helped by the fact that their run in with Konan resulted in most of Shino's bug swarm being annihilated, thus not being able to give Fu back her vitality.

Konan, Nagato, six Pain puppets, Hidan, Kakuzu, and black Zetsu. Jiraiya had hoped for at least a slight hint of an explanation to why his three previous students were dead, distorted, and returned back to life, but it was looking like he was going to have to wait for that.

He gathered the sealed bodies around him with lesser levitation seals and prepared to put Fu on his back. He could probably go the last battles alone. It didn't look like there were too many more going on.

"She's quite strong. What I wouldn't give to see what makes her tick."

Jiraiya sighed in exasperation. He should really stop being so surprised when his ex-teammate sneaked up on him like that. "What do you want Orochimaru? Finally thinking of being of some use?"

"You wouldn't say that if you knew what I was doing this past fifty minutes."

"And what were you doing? You weren't helping the battle effort."

"You're right. I was making sure our dear friend Tsunade didn't die of blood loss… among other things."

Jiraiya stopped attending to Fu for a second. His head swiveled to Orochimaru's, eyes narrowed and piercing. "What?" he asked accusingly.

Orochimaru shrugged. "Believe it or not, Anko found her first. Well, her snake summons found her first, but I followed her. She looked drained of chakra and had a pierced heart. Not even Katsuyu could do anything for her. Luckily, I'd been observing a fight earlier in the evening and found that one of your little videogame teams found a cure for death. So I guided them to our dear friend. She's alive. Still unconscious, but alive. Hey, did you know that your student and my student are in a relationship?"

"That's not important. Wh-"

"It's interesting," Orochimaru interrupted.

Jiraiya sighed again. "Yes. It's interesting. What else were you doing?"

"Tsume also died, so I sent the aforementioned videogame team to her as well. Alive, but she isn't going to be walking anytime soon. Or, ever, I should say."

"That's a shame," Jiraiya said downtroddenly. He liked Tsume. She was probably the only female that he knew of that forewent all the usual annoying traits that women, even shinobi women, tended to have. It was also those traits that made her unattractive to him.

Pig he may be, liar he was not.

"That's a shame, but that doesn't take an hour to accomplish," Jiraiya continued.

"An hour is being generous. It hasn't been that long."

"The question stands."

"Oh, this and that. I needed to grab a few things from my bases that I couldn't before this whole mess."

"If you're planning something…"

"I'm always planning something Jiraiya," Orochimaru paced around side to side, drawing his eyes away from Jiraiya and Fu for only a second, "But the annihilation of the world isn't one of them." He stopped pacing and looked back at Jiraiya, albeit with a confused expression. "Now… where did she go?"

"What do you… mean… oh shit."

The area behind Jiraiya was barren. Fu was gone, nowhere to be seen.

There was that sort of sudden crash of worry that a parent feels when they realize that their child isn't trailing behind them in the store. Though in those situations, the parent usually always had the ability to think up a plan of attack to go find their kid. Check the dairy section. The produce section. Were they still looking at that toy that caught their attention? Check there. Maybe the register saw them. Were they gazing at the donuts in the bread section? Check there.

Jiraiya didn't have that. There was the sudden crash of worry that only grew with intensity as he realized there was absolutely nothing he could do because he didn't even know what he didn't know.

Jiraiya didn't have to say anything. His furious glare at Orochimaru was all the question that needed to be asked.

Orochimaru held his hands up. "I didn't see anything."

"Well, people don't just… vanish!"

"Can't you sense these sorts of things?"

"I wasn't paying attention!"

Orochimaru shrugged. "If you can't sense where she is now, then there's no use in worrying about it. She'll turn up eventually. Now I do believe that we were going to save Konoha from the rest of the reincarnated..."

Jiraiya didn't move from his location even after Orochimaru's continued prodding. He was too busy thinking up every extreme of what could have happened to Fu that was possible.

Nothing good.

Nothing good at all.

**AN/ Hello, it's me, gentlemankitsune.**

**The next chapter is going to be the end to this story with another shorter one as the epilogue.**

**Free internet cookie to whoever gets the halo reference first.**

**Oh, yeah. This next chapter, as you could probably guess, is going to exclusively feature Naruto scenes, so I had this one as a sort of buildup.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	41. an end

Chapter 41

Madara pieced his body back together under the chin of the Gedo statue. Wherever there was a break caused by his sudden impact with its chin was being stitched back together with the small pieces of paper that made up his body.

Naruto frowned. The status bar above his head forewent the usual red and blue bars representing health and chakra respectively and just showed a simple white bar. There was never any fluctuation from any of his actions, either expending chakra or getting torn to pieces, so Naruto didn't have to guess very hard about what was going on.

Madara regenerated from any attack, had limitless chakra, and couldn't be stopped by conventional means. Only method available: seal away and deal with another time.

The Uzumaki unhooked V-chan from his back and twirled it around his body, pressing the various points around the rod that made it transform along the way. When it was done twisting and turning itself, becoming a new weapon altogether, V-chan was left looking like a two-handed tonfa with large brass balls held tight to either of the points. With one final click, they pulled away to either hand with only a small line of ninja wire connecting the two broken ends.

Naruto launched up from the sea and to Madara with both brass balls held forward like an anchor. He impacted the sand right in front of Madara and pounced on the ancient shinobi like a large cat. Madara held both his arms in front of his body and began dancing around the weighted tonfa as best he could. Every so often he'd get clipped on his arms or body, sending pieces of ashen paper scraps flying off his body, and have to jump away for it to regenerate back into him.

"Didn't think *grunt* you had this in you," Madara said between thrusts of tonfa.

"There's a lotta stuff you don't know about me," Naruto said evenly. His face a look of pure concentration.

Madara ducked under a weighted tonfa strike and caught the brass ball end of the strike coming in for his stomach. His fingers cracked under the pressure of the ball, but held firm. The second one came down on his back, cratering it and sending ashen pieces of paper flying through the air. The ancient Uchiha twisted under the tonfa on his back and came out on top of it, grabbing it with his other broken hand. Madara tried to use them as leverage to give Naruto a straight kick, but Naruto was anticipating this.

Naruto jumped back after pushing a few buttons on either end of the tonfa. The brass balls detached from both parts of his dual weapons, connecting them with a line of ninja wire. The line reeled back until Naruto was twenty feet away when it snapped taut.

Madara shrugged and tossed the balls away, running forward and sending a straight punch for Naruto's forehead. The wire under his feet jumped up in the air and crossed over each other. The momentary flash of reflection of the moon on the wires was the only warning Madara had before his upper half was violently sliced from his bottom half.

Before he had the chance to regenerate, Naruto tugged on both the tonfas and started twirling them in opposite directions, making the weights they were connected to fly around the air until they were brought down on Madara's top and bottom half.

His entire body tore itself apart and floated away, regenerating in an instant. Madara's face was now devoid of emotion or the glee that was apparent on it before. "Tricky," he said neutrally. "I underestimated you and I shouldn't have done that. Even if you don't have me beat in pure firepower, you fight smarter than you look you would."

Naruto groaned a little. He didn't think Madara was able to regenerate that fast. He was planning on sealing him away while he was down, but that wasn't looking like an option at that point. "Thanks, I think?"

Madara nodded. "As such, you deserve my full attention." His hands crossed over each other as he did a few handseals.

Naruto swore and jumped forward, swinging the balls through the air and hopefully disrupting what Madara was about to do, but a blast of pure white energy knocked them off course and sent him tumbling to the ground. When Naruto got to his feet, the Madara that he'd been fighting was gone. Those creepy blackened eyes were turned to a normal human white, his face and armor wasn't littered with cracks, and generally, he just felt more powerful, like a _real_ adversary.

Naruto hadn't had one of those in a long time.

It was now that he had a normal chakra and health bar.

Madara hadn't taken a single step forward before blueish purple flames sprouted from around him body and solidified into an armored titan as tall as the Gedo statue with two faces on the front and back of its head and extra forearms growing out of either elbow.

The giant lifted one of its legs and reeled it back as far as it could go. The air that was displaced as it lowered buffeted the air around it like a couple of jet engines were going off where Madara was standing. As soon as the leg passed its other leg it snagged on something that it couldn't break and had to take a few stumbling steps forward to balance itself, going slightly into the surf as it did so. From afar, it was a rather comical sight.

The ruddy red colored rope that the foot was snagged on retreated on itself, vanishing into the sand of the beach. Next to Naruto, a rather large fox dug itself out of the sand and shook itself off. Her tail was the last thing out as it was reeled from the sand.

"Nice save," Naruto said. "Could have handled it myself though."

Kashikoi huffed. "And this is the thanks I get for tunnelin my way here all the way from Konoha with no help from a certain partner of mine. Guess I should've known better."

Naruto knelt down and ruffled her ears and the scruff of her neck. "Thanks. Seriously. But are you sure you want to be here? It's not exactly hospitable right about now."

The ground rumbled slightly as the titan got back up. Two swords in either right facing hand morphed into existence. Madara's Susanoo shambled forward with smaller, quicker steps, now obviously more aware of traps and other trickeries.

"Hospitable or not, you need all the help you can get right now," Kashikoi said as she dodged with Naruto of the way of the giant cleaver.

The swords cleaved into the land and water, creating impromptu sand dunes and large sprays of saltwater. Its size did nothing to belie the amount of speed that it had. It also had no blind spots and could attack in quick succession since it was essentially two attackers in one body. This wasn't like any other foe Naruto had ever faced before.

"What d'you think?!" Naruto screamed as he jumped over one of the swords.

"I think we should go for it!" Kashikoi yelled excitedly, burrowing into the ground to reduce its visibility.

"You sure?!" Naruto ducked under a sword strike and held his arms crossed in front of his chest to reduce the blow from the kick being swung at him. It hit him with the power of a freight train, sending Naruto bounding across the sand with more than a few broken ribs.

As he finally came to a stop, Kashikoi's red tail burst through the sand and held him down in the sand. She popped out next to him and landed on his chest, unknowingly exacerbating his wounds. "I'm sure," she said quickly.

Kashikoi's teeth sunk into Naruto's neck. Red blood gushed into her mouth and overflowed, staining the ground red with his lifeblood. Instead of him dying like was what anyone would have expected to happen, her body began to morph into his.

His torso was wracked with seizure and muscle lock. Red fur sprouted up all over his body, most prominently around his spine and neck. His arms and legs lengthened and cracked into new positions. A red tail grew out of his tailbone and swished around experimentally a few times. His body became slightly lither; not quite masculine, but also not quite feminine. Claws sprouted from his shortening fingers and the pads of his feet and hands became thicker, leatherier. His face was the most that changed, becoming almost exactly like that of a fox, though with a stronger muzzle and blunter features.

_Perk: Yiff Yiff, Motherfucker: by attaining a relationship level with the user's partner that most Inuzuka could only dream of, the user gains the ability to morph its body with its partner. All base stats are combined with the partner. Only animal partners are available for this perk. Only one animal partner is allowed to be morphed into the user at any given moment._

_Prerequisite: 20 merit points, animal partner at least level 150 and within 50 levels of the user, relationship level maxed._

The being whose gender was uncertain (but will be referred to as Naruto with a male pronoun due to simplicity) got up from the sand and snarled at Madara's basic Susanoo. He picked up V-chan from the sand near his feet and transformed it again. This time it covered his arms and hands, extending the reach of his claws and creating slightly wider plates meant to deflect on his upper and forearms. Underneath the plates, V-chan had woven itself into an impenetrable scaled weave with bristled pines poking out. Everything about the vambrace spoke of unrestrained ferocity.

Madara wasted no time admiring Naruto's and Kashikoi's new appearance and sent one of the blades crashing down, hoping to cash in on his momentary lapse of attention.

Naruto raised both his arms up in the air with the hands in a cupping motion. The sword fell down on top of him, making him sink up to his waist in the sand, but not hurting him otherwise. Naruto's hands clamped down on the spiritual looking blade and didn't let go. A simple twist of the wrist was that was required for a sudden snapping sound to resound throughout the air as Madara's sword was split in two.

Trudging himself out of the sand without the help of his hands, Naruto flipped the entire broken part of the blade around until he was grasping the broken end and carefully leveling the pointy bit at Madara's center of gravity.

Madara barely had time to move before part of his own weapon was used against him in the form of a flying missile. He quickly turned around and batted it away with his remaining blade, but the force sent him staggering back against the Gedo statue.

His chest was practically caved in as Naruto turned himself into the next missile, launching himself using his powerful arms and hind legs and plowing straight into Madara's chest with his empowered punches. Naruto wormed his way inside until he was within grasping range of Madara's leg, which he grabbed and used as leverage to throw the rest of him out of his own armor.

As the titanic blue armor fell apart and dissolved, Naruto jumped down and rushed after Madara on all fours. The ancient shinobi tried to fend off the attacks as best as he could, but Naruto was unrelenting and had five avenues of attack: two arms, two legs, one mouth with very sharp teeth. The blows fell on him relentlessly, like there were jackhammers with assorted kitchenware strapped to their ends set up to full blast on every single inch of his body. Blood flew out of his torso, face, and limbs and painted the nearby sand and sea red. Whenever he tried to put up a defense and punch the man-beast combination, his hits were either knocked aside, blocked by the vambraces, or even just taken and brushed aside.

Naruto could see the red on his bar inch downwards, but it seemed unrepresentative of how much damage he was doing to his body. The red was at about 90% when a hand grabbed the back of Naruto's unprotected mane of fur and pulled as hard as it could, sending the foxman away a few meters, landing on his feet.

Where there used to be one Madara, there were now two.

"I do so hate uneven matches," Left Madara said.

"Even if the two _have_ combined, it's still hardly fair, isn't it?" Right Madara said.

They were both engulfed in the now familiar purplish blue flame as their Susanoo grew around their bodies. Now, though, they didn't stop at the two faced variety Naruto had just gotten done fighting before. They grew about half a length higher, shrouded in robes and looking like monks for all intents and purposes before they stopped. This pause didn't last very long as what appeared to be samurai-esque armor grew from out of the robe, making the height go up another half length, now twice as tall as he was originally. Both had tengu-like masks on their faces with nothing to distinguish between the two.

Naruto made a normal, nonbeastmode shadow clone and handed off V-chan to him. The weapon changed this time until it was a completely full set of armor that looked like a mix between eastern and western sets. It wasn't bulky either. Most of pieces clung to his body without any bulging parts meant to deafen blows. Under the plate armor was a gel layer that took the impact just as effectively while allowing for maximum movement.

BeastNaruto and SpartanNaruto fistbumped without looking away from the two imposing giants.

"It's kind of a stretch, don't you think," SpartanNaruto said "to say that that beat down before was two on one?"

The twin Susanoo wordlessly unsheathed their massive blades and leveled them at the two tiny Narutos as a response.

"I'm going to take that as a yes," BeastNaruto rasped out, 'his' voice a raspy combination of Naruto's and Kashikoi's.

Jumping into action, they said synchronously "Let's kick some ass!"

00000000

"Report!" Tsunade said with as much ferocity as she could. Although she was originally restored to half health and chakra, most of the rest of her energy was used in healing the injured shinobi of Konohagakure through Katsuyu. As such, she was strapped into a hospital bed with Shizune and Sakura by her sides, carefully monitoring her vitals and supplying their own chakra when needed. The rest of Team Naruto along with a few stragglers that helped out with the meteors and ensuing carnage were with her in what remained of Konoha administration.

"I'm out of Phoenix Cream," Ino said first. Her face was one of annoyance as Kiba and Hana shot withering glares at her.

"Which is a good thing," Kiba growled. "Because if you had one left, that would mean that you left my mom to die."

"For the last time, I can't make any more Phoenix Cream. If someone else dies that's more important than your mom, they'll be gone for good!" Ino said, raising her voice quite a bit at the end.

"And if nobody dies, then she'll have died for no reason!" Kiba shouted back.

"Shut up!" Jiraiya shouted. Everyone in the room flinched a little bit. They all knew that Jiraiya was able to go into a serious mode when shit hit the fan, but not many had ever heard the man raise his voice past a level of what was absolutely necessary to get command of a room. Something was getting to him.

"Whatever happened, happened," Jiraiya continued. "We can all get into pissing matches after we figure out what the fuck is going on."

"My sentiments exactly," Orochimaru chimed in all too happily.

"What's he doing here?" Tsunade asked, sounding more exasperated than angry or surprised.

"It'd take too long to explain," Jiraiya said, burying his face in his hand. "Let's just get on with it; we're still at war."

"Right…" Anko said. "Well, I found Tsunade after dealing with a few of those weird summon creatures, met up with Shikamaru's little squad and left them to revive her, then went off to help with the rest of the battles going on."

"Well we, the Inuzukas," Kiba began, shooting Ino another death glare. "Managed to stop that guy that was blowing all the shit up. My mom died doing it, but got revived after Ino used that Phoenix Salve, or whatever, on her. It took way too long to convince her, by the way."

"I wouldn't exactly call threatening to 'slit my throat and bleed me like a pig' a matter of convincing or not," Ino said grumpily.

"Duly noted," Tsunade interrupted before they could get into another argument.

"We were helping with the various battles taking place," Neji said. "I did not see anything that would merit anything of immediate worry aside from the obvious high skilled battles."

Kisame raised his hand.

Tsunade looked at him and raised an eyebrow, drawing everyone else's attention to him. He lowered it quickly. "Sorry, don't know the protocol for just chiming in. I was about to swap out with Sasuke for fighting Itachi when that scary motherfucker," he said, pointing to Danzo "ordered him to help out the Kyuubi-"

"Naruto," Anko growled hotly.

"Right, him. Anyway, mister eyes-for-arms did some weird Uchiha thing and got Itachi to stand down after we roughed him up a bit. Itachi's little brother was also acting weird after Danzo talked to him."

Danzo felt his jaw tighten. He assumed that the things he showed during his fight with Itachi would have been obvious to anyone that it should remain a secret, but he didn't account for Kisame's lack of knowledge about the power structure of Konoha. Which was weird, because most people from the high ranks of the five great nations knew who he was. He made a mental note to deal with the shark man personally after the mini-war was over. Nothing good could be gained from him flapping his gums.

"Eyes-for-arms?" Tsunade questioned.

"Irrelevant," Danzo was quick to answer. "My fighting technique has remained a secret for a reason. Right now is not an appropriate time to discuss it."

"But we will," Tsunade said lowly. Although not a lot of it made sense to her, what she was putting together didn't sound good. After this, she was going to have a nice, long chat with her least favorite Konoha elder.

"Shizune and I were in the monument working with an impromptu hospital staff. Total casualty estimate is at about five hundred right now. Mostly chunin that weren't aware of what they were getting into," Sakura said.

"Wait… where's Shino?" Hinata asked slowly.

"His swarm of bugs was reduced to a dangerous point." Jiraiya said "He's off regenerating right now. Don't know where."

"And where's… Fu?" Anko asked slowly, already dreading the answer.

Jiraiya grimaced. "I don't know. She was right by my foot one second, then she was gone the next. She was unconscious and couldn't have gotten away on herself."

"So she's…missing? Taken? Why aren't we freaking out more about this?!" Anko asked, getting suddenly and violently more drawn into the conversation.

"Because we don't have any leads and if we panic, then we'll be playing right into their hands," Jiraiya said.

The room was lit up momentarily as a giant plume of fire went up from very far away in the direction of where Naruto flashed to with Madara and the Gedo statue.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to get a good idea of where she could have gone," Anko grounded out condescendingly. "Okay, you know what? I'm done here. I'm going to go rescue my boyfriend and my… uhh… and Fu."

Whatever remained of the windows were smashed away at Anko jumped out and towards the ruckus Naruto was making out of Madara.

If Tsunade could have pinched the bridge of her nose to stem the oncoming headache, she would have been doing so. "If anyone else is capable of looking after themselves and wants to follow her, you may do so."

Nearly the entire room vanished, including Sakura, leaving only her, Shizune, Tonton, and Danzo standing in that room.

"No 'morally righteous' reason to go save Naruto?" Tsunade asked Danzo, her eyelids feeling very heavy as she slightly slurred her words. If she had retained even a fraction of her chakra reserves after stopping the meteor fragment from hitting the monument, then she felt that she could have given Madara a run for his money, or at the very least stall him for a few seconds. The fact that she couldn't and that life-saving healing cream was used on her was weighing heavily on her shoulders. That topped with proxy healing nearly a quarter the shinobi population who were suffering from grave to serious wounds was making consciousness very hard to hold on to for her.

"I must remain here to guard Konoha against any potential threats that have yet to be taken care of. The fact that you allowed nearly all of our elite guard to go-"

"Eat a dick, Danzo," Tsunade spit out, not in the slightest bit in the mood for any of his condescending passive aggressive bullshit. "The fight's over there," she gestured to where the plume of fire had originated with her chin. "If we're not there to fight it, then who will be?"

Danzo stopped talking, the displeasure clearly written on his face.

"Am I interrupting something?" Kakashi asked as he peered into the widow hole from behind part of a crumbling wall. He walked out fully and whipped out his porn book, realizing that there wasn't any threats nearby and wishing to present a calm and aloof demeanor. When he only received a few blank stares, he went onto his next question. "What happened here?"

Tsunade sighed, Danzo grumbled something incoherently, and Shizune shuffled from side to side nervously. They all expected one of the others to speak up and inform Kakashi, so the room remained silent.

Having not received any suitable response again, Kakashi pointed to the backs of the retreating Team Naruto and murmured "I think I'm just going to follow them."

00000000

The main body of Naruto panted heavily. Over the course of… however long he'd been fighting Madara, he managed to chip away another 20% hit points from his remaining health, each downgrade of 10% health eliciting another change in form. When he got down to 80%, the two divided into four Susanoo titans and when he got down to 70%, the Susanoo vanished altogether as Madara shucked off his upper armor and clothing to show to the world a face on his left breast with a paler tone of skin than the rest of his body. The face grew markings and Madara got another boost in stats.

Which led to where he was now, leaning against a tree and trying to gain back his breath as his shadow clones distracted the main boss. The plan wasn't anything special, at least not to him. All five would attack at once with a different weapon and fighting style. When one dispelled and subsequently lost their weapon, another would form and take out another different weapon. The specifics of using sealed weapons together with shadow clones had weird rules attached to it, probably by the videogame to make it so there wouldn't be as many ways to break the world.

They attacked with such varied weapons as a six foot long claymore with a strange symbol etched at the base of the blade to a pair of double knives that were connected to their hilts with wire to even just a warped cylinder of a handle that when activated sprouted out electric blue plasma blades on both top or bottom. They were labeled as _Cross-over Weapons_ and he liked them a lot. The only downside was that they were hard to come by and had a good amount of caveats when it came to actually using them. However, it was those caveats that made them useful when he sent his clones en masse to distract woefully more powerful enemies. They weren't meant to deal a lot of damage per se, more just to confuddle the opponent for long enough that the main Naruto could get his breath. It was a technique he'd only had to use against some of the stronger opponents in Jiraiya's demonic book of super training.

Naruto and Kashikoi separated from each other and appraised their opponent from a comfortable distance.

"Think we should use it?" she asked.

"That's the last resort of the last resort and you know it."

"Well things ain't looking too good on our front. You're losin too much chakra to keep up your pace, he's barely at 65% health, and he's just gonna get stronger every 10% or so. We don't have many other last resorts up our sleeve."

Naruto suddenly looked up, as if he were in deep thought.

"What's up? What's wrong? What's goin on?" Kashikoi pestered worriedly.

"We're getting help," Naruto told her. Oh, how much he loved the _Chakra Sensor _skill.

The five clones vanished from their various states of fighting as the real Naruto ran out of his poorly concealed hiding place and met Madara fist to fist, well, fist to pole. V-chan was a golden flurry of hardened, yet flexible materials as Naruto used her to her full effectiveness as a weapon of distraction and guidance. Madara's fists and feet were redirected or slapped away with every thrust of the limb. He was fast enough to make it so Naruto never had the chance to attack back, but Naruto was skilled enough with V-chan that he never got even slightly injured.

"Decided to come out of your little foxhole?" Madara questioned, his face neutral, but was secretly happy that he now had the chance to get rid of the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you decided to use more fox iconography," Naruto grunted. Whatever the case was, his defense was taking a lot more energy to maintain than Madara's offense. Even if the ancient shinobi had taken a licking so far, if their pace kept the same, Madara was going to outlast him and then some.

"Why don't you give up? I'm bored of this and you're going to lose. I'm sure there's a way to take the Kyuubi without killing you," Madara said, trying and failing to make his offer sound enticing as he tried to behead Naruto.

"I wouldn't be so sure about th-" Naruto gasped and spluttered, ending the sentence prematurely as he coughed and puked up blood. He looked down at the shaft of a sword protruding from his stomach.

Madara grinned savagely. "Did you believe that I wouldn't bring out any weapons?"

"No," Naruto gasped at pain that merely talking brought forth. "That wasn't in my expectations, but this WAS!" Naruto clenched Madara's hands in his then fell backwards and tucked his legs up to his chest. His feet were placed against the dead man's abdomen as Naruto pistoned him up into the air. Madara flew up a good fifty feet, sword and all, and looked around confusedly. Up in the air, he was left little to no maneuverability as purple arrows covered in black flames flew through the sky and grazed, shaved, or completely impacted his body. The last arrow was the longest and the strongest of the bunch, going so far as to catch him in the stomach and fly off towards the ocean.

Naruto couldn't see where he finally landed because of the clone currently healing the hole in his torso, but he could sense that the Uchiha had to have flown miles at the very least before landing in the ocean. If only his sensing ability extended to knowing what people's health was. If he got knocked down to 60%, then he was going to be in deep shit real soon.

Sasuke landed next to him, staring out at the sea with his eyes narrowed and helped Naruto up into a standing position.

"What should I know?" he asked.

Naruto explained the situation to him as briefly as he could with all the relevant information that he thought would be important enough to share. Kashikoi quipped in every now and then, but Naruto didn't know if Sasuke could hear her. Despite having leveled so much, Kashikoi never developed human speech, though some could hear her if they had the right skills.

Sasuke grunted appraisingly. "I saw his health go down to 60%. Sounds like the contacts Orochimaru gave me are a bit different from yours. I can see his health split up into different chunks, which probably corresponds to his transformations."

"Grand," Naruto said. "So what now? Wait until Madara comes back, or should we go on the offensive?"

"Defensive is probably the… best-" Sasuke turned around sharply and unsheathed his chokuto completely, leveling it at the Gedo statue.

Naruto was about to ask what Sasuke saw, but he felt it before he could verbalize his thoughts. And what he felt left him speechless.

It was a chakra signature unlike any that he'd ever felt before. It was twisted and warped beyond what could be recognized as human and had many different types of chakra swirling around inside of it. And on his shoulder was the unconscious energy of Fu.

Naruto's next action was subconscious. A reaction his body had that his brain wasn't able to keep track of. As soon as he could feel Fu's unconscious chakra signature in close proximity with that… thing, he teleported to the seal he secretly put at the nape of her neck, rasengan already forming in his hand, and thrust his hard straight through the chest cavity of Obito.

Unlike any of the other times he used the rasengan on humans, however, his arm being thrust into Obito didn't result in a spray of blood and gore like what was normal for him. It was like he tried to attack a mirage.

He noticed a few things after than happened. Fu's body fell through Obito's, no longer supported by anything physical, Obito's eye as he turned around and tried to put him under an illusion, and a feeling of the air being suctioned all around him as he vanished from that instance of space and time to be put into a different, blockier and darker dimension.

A dimension in which he couldn't escape, no matter which perk or item he had.

Sasuke cursed harshly at his friend's inability to think situations through before he went head on into them. He was about to body flicker up to Obito and begin to cautiously probe the mysterious man's strange ability when blue Susanoo hands burst from the ocean surf and batted him in the exact opposite direction of where Madara was.

Sasuke got up immediately and took in his surroundings more fully. Madara didn't look too different, though he sported a semi-Susanoo guard of ribs and extra arms. The masked man offered nothing in terms of what he was capable of through how he looked. What he knew of the man so far was that he was either a very skilled genjutsu artist, something extremely unlikely since Naruto, like he, was probably long immune to genjutsus, or somebody very skilled at space-time jutsu. The masked man also seemed to have the ability to make his opponents simply vanish, but Sasuke didn't know if that was attributed to his time-space techniques or not. The unconscious body of Fu was once more being slung over the shoulder of the masked man and the Gedo statue's primary eye seemed slightly more open than before.

When did that happen?

Fu was tossed up in the air by Obito as he rushed down in the sand and drew knives attached to chains, which dangled behind him dangerously. Madara jumped to catch Fu and landed directly in front of the Gedo statue, already beginning to perform some infernal technique on her seal.

Sasuke swore once more and tried to muscle his way past Obito and stop Madara, but was brought back when a chain wrapped around his ankle and yanked him away. Sasuke's mistake was thinking that Obito was just a powerless mook of Madara's, and not a sub boss. Though, to be fair, he was missing a health bar for some reason. That only happened when the person was low enough level that killing him wouldn't beget any experience or when he was dead.

They began fighting with their own weapons, chokuto against chain knives, while Sasuke tried his best to inch forward to Madara. He even threw in as many of his heavy hitters as he dared if only to make Obito back off for a few milliseconds before he was back on him. Strangely enough, the masked man never once used the strange ability of his that made his body react like a mirage. Unknown to him, Obito realized that when Naruto confronted him just as he appeared on the Gedo, he'd been unable to put the blond under a Tsukiyomi genjutsu, so he was still kicking around in his separate dimension completely conscious. Thusly, if Obito used his Kamui to teleport his body parts out of harm's way, it likely wouldn't be long until Naruto started to get wise or just impatient enough to begin lashing out at anything that suddenly appeared in that dimension.

"What are you planning?!" Sasuke all but screamed, mostly out of frustration, at Obito after another failed attempt to get past his defense.

"A better world," Obito replied vaguely.

Sasuke growled. Sneaking a look at Madara, the Uchiha was nearly floored at the sight. The Gedo Statue was eating a huge conglomerate of chakra which was being syphoned out of Fu's seal. That was bad. What Sasuke knew of Jinchuuriki told him that having their bijuu forcibly ripped out of them ended up in their deaths every single time, regardless of any special attributes they may or may not have had.

With a sort of snap, the last tendril of chakra coming from Fu was torn off and slurped up into the statue. Its last closed eye clacked open. As Sasuke watched with equal parts mystification, horror, and a profound feeling of his stomach hitting the bottom of his shoes, Obito did nothing but watch along with him.

Then things got weird.

00000000

"I don't see why I'm helping you all with this rescue mission. I remember that boorish girl. She killed one of my favorite apprentices."

Jiraiya sighed harshly and began grinding his teeth together. Without moving his jaw at all, Jiraiya said "Firstly, this isn't a rescue mission. This isn't even a mission that could be defined with any sort of descriptive word correctly. Secondly, if you don't want to help, you're free to go fuck yourself somewhere else."

Seriously, was he always this annoying, or was being mentally secluded from everyone in the world for about a decade the thing that destroyed any personality he might have had while they were teammates?

Whatever the case may be, Orochimaru shut his mouth for at least a few more seconds. Seconds in silence that Jiraiya was glad to have. The entire group had been running near full tilt away from Konoha for about 10 minutes at that point and the only people talking were Orochimaru and Jiraiya; though the latter only spoke when it would aide in getting the former to shut his trap.

It also wasn't a coincidence that when Orochimaru tried to pull someone else into conversation that they didn't even look at him as they sped up to tree jump with someone else. One of those people happened to be Anko, who randomly chose Sakura to jump beside in order to get away from her bastard of an ex-mentor.

As Orochimaru and Jiraiya began to verbally duke it out, Sakura turned ever so slightly to Anko and asked quietly "They're going to be alright."

Anko furrowed her brows in confusion and looked at Sakura. "Wha-" she began to say before the look on Sakura's face registered in her brain. The young kunoichi wouldn't have fit the caricature for nervousness better if she was also biting her lip. Sakura didn't say that because she was assured that they were alright. Sakura said that because she needed assurance that they were.

The Mitarashi had to force a smile as she patted Sakura on the back a little awkwardly. "Of course they are. They're Uzumaki-fucking-Naruto and Fu-who-needs-no-epithet. They'll be fine."

Sakura didn't look so sure. Anko was going to let it stay at that and continue on in silence, trying to tune out Orochimaru's incessant tries at getting people to talk to him as she did so, but Sakura's head perked up at full attention without any emotion on it whatsoever.

It was an expression Anko'd seen on many a face before. The face of a person who momentarily did away with their emotions and let the job fully envelop them.

"I can sense something!" Sakura relayed to the rest of the team. As the resident medic, she'd also done training to fully max out her sensor skill, as she was one of the few who had the possibility open to her.

For a few seconds, everyone waited with baited breath as she focused nearly all her mental faculties on the picture forming in her brain. When she was done, her eyes opened wider than saucers with a panicked look very clear on her face.

"We need to hurry!" was all she said before darting off to spearhead the group.

"Wait, hold up!" Anko shouted after her, trying to keep up. It was hard, as confused worry could never fully beat out full blown terror in a matter of adrenaline production, but Anko was the more experienced ninja of the two. Anko reached out a hand and clamped down on the girl's shoulder.

"What's going on?!" she asked loudly, everyone else listening in with her.

"I-I-I… uh… Fu's- I mean… She's like- She's in trouble, I think. Yes she is! She's in trouble and oh shit, her chakra is vanishing and Naruto's not there, or I can't sense him. Why wouldn't he be there? Or is he hiding? Why would he be hiding?! Sasuke's there and he's fighting and there's something else that's big, and I mean really really BIG! And… I don't know, there's…" Sakura continued on in garbled hysterics, each stream of thought got gobbled up by another just as quickly as it reached her mind.

This was bad. Sakura was the epitome of calm collectiveness, especially in high-stress situations. She was a woman who was used to taking over shifts in the hospital that lasted for 24 hours in which not a single second went by that she wasn't in charge of a person's very life. The fact that she couldn't impart a clear picture of what was happening was far more worrying than any picture that she could have imparted otherwise.

Anko felt like letting out a litany of profane curses, but she knew that would only add to the wavering in everyone's hearts.

"Listen up!" Anko barked out behind her, making more than a few of the team members jump from the suddenness. "We're going into a situation that could very well put the fate of the elemental nations in our hands. The game isn't over yet and I'm willing to put a good portion of my money on the fact that the thing Sakura's talking about is the last boss. That means that everyone here is going to put out their everything right from the start. If any of us hold back even a little bit, the world could very well be imperiled for it. Anyone too afraid to face this monster, head back right now. We won't miss you."

Nobody left. If anything, their faces grew emboldened by her speech.

"How much longer?" Kisame asked from somewhere in the back.

Anko turned her head ever so slightly to Sakura, who understood the cue and said "about four more minutes."

"Four more minutes," Anko relayed back. She probably didn't need to do so, but her speech made something clear: she was now the moral leader of the group. Anything of importance that needed to be said was said by her.

Anko picked up the pace even more than before, injecting herself with another speed cocktail. Though it did inspire even more speed from the rest of the group, that fact was just a side effect of what she wanted to do. Mostly, she just wanted to hide her expression from everyone else. Her mask had shattered. The worry that was eating up her insides finally burst through her face and if anyone saw it, there could be a huge blow for moral. Also, she just wasn't the kind of person that liked it when others saw her in a weak state.

'Goddamn it Naruto,' she thought to herself 'You'd better be alright. Fu, you too.'

00000000

The statue that had been idling ever since Sasuke came over and saved Naruto's ass was finally awakening. Its skin was warping and undulating rapidly, changing form over and over with Madara's motionless form crouching on top of it. Obito had ceased his relentless assault in favor of viewing the transformation with Sasuke in his peripheral. And Sasuke just didn't even know where to start in his actions.

"What did you do?" Sasuke asked.

"We're creating reality," Obito replied cryptically.

"Where's Naruto?"

"He's in a separate dimension that only I can access," he replied not so cryptically.

Sasuke growled and twirled around his chokuto a few times, lighting beginning to arc up the side of the blade and light up the dark area around them. "Okay, I guess we're doing this the hard way."

Before he could run forward and begin another long process of trying to skewer the mystery man, tens of stark white hands sprouted up from the ground and wrapped around his ankles and legs. "Yeah, I guess we are," Obito replied. You could practically hear his one visible eye begin to glare as he said so.

Sasuke cursed loudly at the suddenness of these new arrivals and started hacking away at them. They were surprisingly strong; even one could keep him held down in a vice clamp.

He was so preoccupied with the hands that he barely registered the flinging knives connected to chains heading his way. Sasuke had to lean widely back to dodge the strange weapons, but even more hands sprouted from the ground and took a hold of everything they could get. Hair, arms, clothes, anything that could be held onto, was.

Sasuke growled as his eyes changed form into the Eternal Mangekyo. His entire body was engulfed in black flames, burning everything in reach, including himself. He might have had a natural resistance to burns thanks to his secondary affinity for fire, but it still hurt like a bitch.

By the time he ripped himself away from the immolated limbs and was facing Obito again, now covered in a considerably larger amount of burn marks, the masked man was having a sort of conversation with what looked like half a desiccated corpse made out of cheap play-doh at the forefront of legions of others that looked like perfect replicas of each other. They were arguing, rather heatedly, not that Sasuke really cared all too much.

The legions of White Zetsu behind Obito numbered past what Sasuke could even halfway estimate. There were a lot, going out of view from the beach and beyond. A lot of them also looked like they went through the proverbial grinder, missing limbs or even having holes that he see through in their midsections and heads. Whatever they were, they were going to be hard to kill. Evidently, they also traveled underground with seemingly no trouble if all the burns on Sasuke's body were any indication.

The Jyuubi had gotten to at least ten times the size that it was before and was now spilling into the ocean. It was a monstrosity with ten swishing tails behind it, a bulging, conic body, gangly arms that sunk into the ocean, a mouth full of long, razor sharp teeth, and a single purple ringed Rinnegan in the center of its 'face'.

It had a red bar above the peak of its head that was separated into three sections. Above it read the name _Jyuubi_.

The Jyuubi roared a terrible wail that was so loud that the vibrations were visible as the emanated from its mouth. Sasuke had to clutch his ears and screw his eyes shut to block out the sound. It was only his reflexes that saved him from the onslaught of rushing White Zetsu.

Although he'd only seen them in front of him before, he could have sworn that they were lying in wait behind him, under him, on top of him, and anywhere else they could have theoretically positioned themselves beforehand, because he was immediately swamped. The only thing that saved him from being immediately torn to pieces was the Susanoo armor that sprouted up around him, and even then he could barely keep that up because of the Jyuubi's shrill scream continuously blasting in his ear.

He tried to bat, crush, and otherwise immobilize the oncoming rush of White Zetsu, but they kept on coming and were a lot stronger than they looked. Eventually, he began to feel like his Susanoo armor was trying to wade through thick bog with cement mix dumped in. It was when he couldn't move anymore that Obito's chain-kunai sunk through the armor in his chest and came to a stop at either ends of his head. Up close, he could see the large hooks protruding right from under where the handle was supposed to be. They retracted wildly and got caught on his outer armor. The chains proved to be stronger as they ripped the entire front section clean off, exposing his face and body to the cool ocean air.

Obito walked up to the incapacitated Sasuke and put a kunai to his throat. At that moment, the roar stopped and he could think clearly again, already trying to blink away the loud whine in his ears. Obito's face mask moved up and down almost imperceptibly, the only evidence to Sasuke that he was actually talking. Sasuke found it comical in a way and would have laughed derisively if he didn't think that wouldn't threaten his jugular.

Obito seemed to finally notice Sasuke's problem and brought up one of his hands to Sasuke's ear, glowing a pale green. The ringing stopped halfway and Obito began speaking again.

"Surrender and live in our new world, or die."

Sasuke hmphed and disinterestedly stared at Obito's one visible eye. "And what exactly is this new world you're talking about?"

"A world without any conflict or bloodshed. Where everyone that you loved is still alive and no one that you hate. A world of eternal happiness."

"A world without conflict? I love fighting. That sounds like a shitty existence."

Obito almost sighed. "I can see that you're stalling for time. A world that is catered to you instead of the other way around. Yes or no? Live or die?"

"I'm not stalling for time. I just want to kno-" the knife pressed against his throat harshly and drew a thin line of blood that trickled down to his collarbone and vanished down the crack of his shirt.

"I'm bored of your games."

Sasuke drew his gaze away from Obito and up towards the sky. "I really should have taken a page out of Naruto's book. He always managed to keep people's attention for minutes at a time. But, it looks like I did good enough for this situation."

Obito twirled around just in time to see most of the White Zetsu army get annihilated by a pale white rectangle that broke the bonds between molecules, making everything in its radius look like it simply vanished.

Sasuke ducked under the knife in the confusion and brought his around for a swinging headbutt that launched Obito away from his armor's open chest cavity. Headbutting a man wearing a military grade mask might not have been the greatest for staving off the probability of concussions, but it at least got him space. With his mind not addled by the Jyuubi's scream, he was free to summon his complete Susanoo and bash away the remaining White Zetsu near him.

A small man hovered up to his Susanoo's torso, where Sasuke was located.

"Well this is a shitshow," Onoki grumbled.

"Where did you come from?"

"Who did you think got rid of the fifth meteorite fragment? Divine intervention? Young'uns these days. No respect for the big names of yesterday."

"That was like an hour ago. We could have used your help since then," Sasuke said accusingly, not fazed in the slightest at the fact that he was talking to the standing Tsuchikage.

"Broke my back. Still don't feel right."

"Uh-huh. If you're here, why aren't the rest of the villages?"

"Didn't check on my way. Nothing good, I'm sure. That's not important right now. That thing is," Onoki said, pointing to the Jyuubi. "How do we kill it? It's huge."

Sasuke shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. But first, we need to free my other teammate if we have any chance of defeating that thing in a frontal assault. He's held captive, or something, by the man in the mask," Sasuke said, pointing to the man flying across the ocean to the Jyuubi, no doubt looking for some sort of direction in what he was supposed to be doing.

Onoki grunted a confirmation. "Anything I should know?"

"Don't look him in the eyes and don't get too close."

Onoki grinned. "Perfect."

00000000

It was hopeless and futile and vain and just about any other expression that went along those lines.

Naruto had no idea where the fuck he was. For all he knew, it could have been heaven, hell, or purgatory, though he had a sneaking suspicion that in actuality, it was a whole lot more confusing than that. He'd been trying to save Fu from that creepy mask guy, then POOF. There he was. In a blackened space held together by strange rectangular blocks that shot up from a bottomless pit.

Cursory searching did nothing to help. There were no chakra signatures and the only things of any tangible presence were strange weapons thrown about the place haphazardly.

Seriously, there was even a huge sword whose blade was shaped like a big peanut. What the fuck was supposed to make of that? It wasn't like he'd ever seen a non-folding fan in that shape before, nor had he ever thought that one could be used for a means other than lazily fanning oneself cool during hot days.

He sighed and plopped down on his ass on a particularly high-climbing rectangle, resting his head in his hand and looking forlorn as he did so. And he managed to hold that pose for all of two seconds before he growled and threw himself back, rolling on the ground and screaming in frustration.

Why didn't anything make sense anymore? Honestly, it was like ever since that fateful night in Wave, he'd been falling forward non-stop and the only way to keep from hitting the ground was to run full steam ahead with all his might and roll with the flow.

And where the hell did that land him? The land of weird boxes and peanut fans. Who wanted to live in the land of weird boxes and peanut fans? Naruto didn't. Honestly, he didn't care if was ever a shinobi again. He didn't care if he was stripped of chakra and forced to live like a civilian. He didn't care if the concept of ramen vanished from the world he was in. He just wanted it to be done!

GAME OVER.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONTINUE?

FUCK NO.

ARE YOU SURE?

ABSO-GODDAMN-LUTELY.

WE HAVE SUPER COOL MECHANICS.

DON'T GIVE A SHIT. GAME OVER. DONE. THAT'S ALL FOLKS.

I REALLY THINK YOU SHOULD GIVE THIS DECISION MORE THOUGHT-

YOU THINK I HAVENT THOUGHT ABOUT THIS BEFORE? THIS ENTIRE SITUATION IS BECAUSE OF YOU AND YOUR GODDAMN NEED TO HAVE ME STAR IN A FUCKING VIDEOGAMES. SURE, VIDEOGAMES ARE COOL AND ALL, BUT I NEVER WENT OUT OF MY TO PLAY THEM. THEY WERE ALWAYS JUST A WAY TO KILL TIME AS MY BODY RELAXED FROM TRAINING. THAT'S ALL THEY WERE TO ME. YOU HERE THAT? I DON'T EVEN REALLY LIKE GAMES THAT MUCH!

Naruto sighed in frustration at the conversation he was having in his head. Grinding his teeth a little, Naruto fished around his pockets a little bit before unfolding the Guidebook and flipping to a random page.

"Where am I?" he asked succinctly.

"_I cannot divulge that information at this point," _The robotic feminine voice of his Guidebook replied.

"Is there any information about my current situation that you can divulge?" Naruto asked as politely as he could, belying his true state of nearly unbridled frustration. Who knew, maybe it responded to kindness?

"_Yes."_

"Mind sharing that information?"

"…_Which information would you like to hear about first? Your options are: Attribute points, Base points, Perks, Experience, Leveling, Questing, Jobs, Recipes-"_

"How about you tell me who designed this game."

"…_I do not understand-"_

"You do realize that you pause, right? When you're trying to figure out a question that you don't know how to respond to? You're not a fucking omniscient program. You're a person. What kind of person, I don't know. But you're a person. I don't know if you speak for the guy who made this game, or what, but I'd you to relay a question to him."

"_I do not-"_

"Would you kindly tell him that he really, REALLY sucks at making videogames?"

"_I do not u-"_

"Well I don't care if you understand the question or not, just do it. Seriously, it was all nice, and hunky dory at the beginning; I was learning new features, gaining skills left and right, I even got a fox – A freaking fox who is so soft and cute and furry – and all that shit, but then I ran out of things to do. You had absolutely no plans for an end game and this 'videogame' that you're calling it suffers from that a whole bunch. 1/10, no stars, do no not recommend, wouldn't play AGAIN!" Naruto shouted out that last part, coming to an end of his rant with a red face and spittle slightly staining the face of the book.

It'd be gone in a few seconds anyway.

It always was.

Naruto threw the book down the chasm and sincerely hoped that it would never return to his life. He was to the point where fantasizing about a world without that book brought a great smile to his face.

He'd have gone back from Wave, gotten praised by the old man for such a job well done, then he'd train for the chunin exams and he... probably wouldn't have met Anko.

But that was fine. They'd probably cross paths again another time… maybe. Fu! He would have met Fu just like he did originally… though it wasn't like he could have helped her if she went on a rampage without all that help from the pervert and Anko in teaching him seals and acrobatics and stuff.

That didn't mean much though. He'd learn about all that stuff… probably? Maybe? Hopefully?

It wasn't like Kakashi's teaching skills were up to snuff when he was assigned Team 7.

Team 7, that's right! He, Sasuke, and Sakura would have gotten along as a team and progressed through the ranks together. They would have had so much fun. Praising each other, giving each other playful ribbing, helping each other to grow as people… then again, Sasuke already had a pretty big boner for revenge at that point. Would he have been able to help Sasuke with that? Could he have convinced him to remain loyal to Leaf?

Would things have been the same? Would they have been good?

Naruto growled some more and punched the block, leaving crack marks that spread across the entire thing, though not deep enough to actually hurt its stability.

"_They wouldn't."_

Naruto jolted upwards and scrambled around in his jacket for a few seconds before grabbing a hold of the Guidebook. "What?" he asked.

"_Things wouldn't have been fine. Or, well, I'm sure that the current you wouldn't agree with that all that much, but the other you, the main you would."_

Naruto glared at the obnoxiously vague book, like he was about to light it on fire with his eyes alone. "And what do you mean by that?"

"…"

Naruto nodded while rolling his eyes. "Should have guessed. Just when you felt like being helpful, you clam up again."

"_It's not that I'm a bad game designer, you're just a shitty gamer."_

"Are you seriously blaming the gamer for not 'understanding your work'? That's a cop-out and you know it."

"_You didn't stay with your team. You didn't hunt down the Akatsuki. You just wasted three years of time power leveling with some creepster in the middle of the woods! There was a whole chain of quest events that I meticulously crafted JUST FOR YOU. But NOOO, you just had to have your way, didn't you? It's entirely your fault that the balance for the game was thrown so far off the loop," _the Guidebook said, now sounding far more human and speaking with more emotion than ever before.

"Balance? Isn't that your realm of expertise? And why are you suddenly so chatty all of the sudden? Wasn't your whole thing all about how vague an answer you could give while somehow remaining correct?"

"_Oh, now you're complaining that I'm speaking too much?! I just can't fucking please you, can I? And to answer your first question: kind of. I designed the game so that it would scale in difficulty to how powerful you are. Why do you think everything's so different? Oh, right, you have absolutely no idea what _normal_ is supposed to be."_

"Yeah, I don't. Mind explaining?"

"_Not really. It'd take too long and I'm not in the mood for it. And just so you know, I never wanted to make a videogame about you. I was compelled to by that weird masked man that put you here in the first place. The only thing I am is a strange amalgamation of the Izanagi and Izanami eye jutsu that was coded specifically in a computer and had to be signed under oath of contract in order to be put under effect for reasons that I still don't understand. And that's a whole 'nother can of worms that we aren't opening right now."_

Naruto pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay… okay, I'm sorry. I'm kind of in a high stress situation right now and I needed to vent."

The book remained quiet as Naruto pondered his next choice of words. "Is Fu okay?"

"_Dunno. Like you said, I'm not omniscient. Normally, I know what's going on by latching onto the signals that my other hardware gives off, then reading what information they have to give me. Right now, we're in a separate dimension cut off from those things."_

"Then how do you know if it's GAME OVER or not?"

"_How do geese know to fly in V patterns? Instinct, hard coding, whatever you want to call it."_

"You said that you were made by the masked man, right? Any ideas on how to get out of here?"

"_None that would work."_

Naruto sighed again and began flipping through the pages of the book idly, hoping to god that somebody would release him from this bleak existence. He'd leveled up again. Naruto shrugged and put the points he got from the level up into his speed stat, then felt the standard undulations of his muscle and bones as they changed ever so slightly to give him higher speed. It wasn't like it helped by much. Once his stats were blazing past the two hundreds mark, any change in them felt incremental and insignificant.

"Why _are_ you so chatty now?" Naruto asked.

"_Game's almost over anyway. Who cares?"_

It wasn't like he could argue with that logic. "You mentioned a main me."

"_I'd need a chart or a whiteboard or something to explain that to you. But, no, it's more like… original you instead of main you. You'll always be the main you, but you're living in accordance to a different dimension. Ever heard of the many universes theory?"_

"Nope."

"_Well, like I said then, whiteboard."_

Naruto grunted. "When are _you_ ever going to show me a whiteboard? You're a book, or well… you know what I mean."

"_Let's just say, if we ever meet, that means that you fucked up. So if you ever come to an understanding of the many universes theory, then it'll be a moot point anyway."_

"Mhmm, let's just say that-" Naruto interrupted himself by suddenly shooting upright and looking very keenly as a single point off in the distance, like a meerkat. A really weird looking meerkat.

It was like a sort of flicker of chakra. Chakra never just came into existence and vanished just as quick. The nearest feeling he'd ever felt along those lines were when his clones were teleporting rapidly between points that were pretty far away.

Naruto tilted his head to the book without drawing his eyes from where the chakra was first felt. "Does he, the masked man, use spatial chakra?"

"_I know I was trying to be helpful before, but I seriously can't help you with stuff as blatant as that."_

"Noted." Naruto picked up the Guidebook and began walking to where he felt the flicker of chakra.

00000000

The vast majority of Team Naruto didn't really know what to expect when they finally escaped from the tree line. Something big, they knew that. Something that could incapacitate Fu, which to them felt inconceivable. And that Sasuke was there too.

That state of mind didn't adequately prepare them for coming face to face with the second state Jyuubi flinging around stakes of sharpened wood _and fucking lasers_ as Onoki flitted through the air and pelted it with molecule destabilizing jutsu. They also weren't prepared to see Sasuke getting pushed back in his full Susanoo armor against a single opponent who was on the ground and not seemingly using any sort of the stranger tricks that most high level shinobi were known for having.

The extendable Kusanagi flew from Orochimaru's mouth and caught the Uchiha by surprise, even nicking him in the thigh before his reflexes caught up with him and sidestepped the rest of the blade, minimizing the damage.

Anko got on top of the command structure immediately and began issuing orders. "Ino, Shikamaru, Chouji, you all help Sasuke. Orochimaru, Jiraiya, Yamato, Kiba, Hana, Lee, Guy, Kakashi, Hinata, Neji, and… who are you again?"

"Kisame."

"Right, Kisame. You all go help whoever that is in the air in taking out the big boss. Sakura, you're with me. We need to check up on Fu."

The three groups split up and raced to their destinations, some looking grimmer than others.

It didn't take long for Anko and Sakura to find Fu in a crumpled heap on the sand a little bit away from the huge indentation of where the Gedo Statue was originally sitting at. The two kunoichi turned her over and began looking her over with Anko mostly doing some last minute field preparation for some tonics and poultices. The good thing about the vast majority of her consumables were that they were fairly powerful with relatively low tradeoff, assuming she was careful about doses. The bad thing was that they were nearly toxic to anyone who hadn't trained their Blood Corruption levels like she had, so she was trying to make something to help with… whatever it was that Fu had to make her better.

Anko started to worry slightly when the green glow of Sakura's hands died out and the medic started to resort to more physical techniques, like CPR. That wasn't good. The really good medics barely ever had to get their hands dirty and Sakura was a really good medic.

"What's wrong?" Anko asked as she ground down some leaves into a paste.

"Her hearts not beating. She's been dead for a few minutes. I-I…" Sakura stopped all of the sudden and looked helplessly to Anko. "Her bijuu's been ripped out of her. Jinchuuriki don't survive that."

Anko felt her body go chill. "W-What do you mean by that?"

"There's… nothing I can do," Sakura said, the sides of her eyes glittering with the promise of future tears.

Anko clenched her fingers to the palms of her hands. "NO!" she shouted resolutely and just a little desperately. She pushed Sakura away a little harder than she should have and straddled the green-haired girl's stomach, hands flitting through the vials on her body as she did so.

The Mitarashi brought the first one down, a syringe type, into the girl's chest and pulled the plunger, looking at Fu's face with a glimmer of hope shining in her eyes.

Nothing.

The girl did not stir.

Anko let out a string of curses as she lifted the girl's mouth up and dumped the contents of another down her throat. She waited a few seconds for it take effect, but it never did.

The snake mistress laid Fu's head down as gently as she could and fumbled a little bit with the belt gong over her chest. She pulled the vial she wanted, but also snagged a few others on her sleeves that went flying off to the side. Anko paid them no mind, uncapping the vial and spreading the contents on any of Fu's exposed, pale, cold, clammy skin.

Fu didn't wake up.

Anko began hyperventilating a little bit. No, this couldn't be happening. Not again. Never again. Fu was practically her best friend. One of her only friends. She couldn't just be… dead.

Her lip quivered a little bit. Water began to flow from her eyes like a waterfall. Finally, her face scrunched up and Anko broke down.

Anko held the dead girl to her body and cried. She wailed. All the fighting of the world meant nothing to her in that moment. There was no other sound than the sound of Anko's fingers digging into Fu's hair. There was no other feeling than the hot tears on Anko's cheeks and the burning in her lungs and heart.

This was a feeling of loss that Anko had never felt before. She'd been betrayed, isolated, had felt the pain of not belonging to anything in the world. She'd had friends that hadn't come back from missions and friends that she held on to as they died. But she was a ninja; those sorts of things happened sometimes. She was ready for it.

Except she wasn't, it looked like.

Anko longed for some sort of exploit in the game, in real life to suddenly fall from the heavens and bestow Fu with a beating heart and working mind.

Nothing.

The girl did not stir.

She was dead.

Eventually, Anko laid her down against the soft sand and brushed a few errant particles off of her cheeks. Even in death, she had such a beautiful, carefree face. Anko stood up with a steely face and looked at Sakura. "Where's Naruto?" she whispered.

"I, uhm… there's trace residue of his chakra on that man's cloak," Sakura said, pointing at the masked man, trying her best to quietly respect Anko's newfound grief.

Anko nodded. "We have a job to do. You're still with me. There's no telling where Naruto's gone off to now."

Sakura nodded. "R-Right… Anko-"

"Not now," she interrupted, squinting her eyes closed with a clenched jaw and a mighty frown marring her face. "Just… let's just save the world for now. Picking up the pieces is for later."

Back with Sasuke, Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji, they were finally pushing Obito to the brink of using his spatial techniques to get away from their combined efforts. However, he wasn't one of the strongest people alive for no good reason. He used every technique he had hidden up his sleeves to get away from the combined efforts of the clan children, including switching places with White Zetsus, alive or dead, throwing about giant shuriken out of nowhere, and spawning huge barrier type ninjutsu to impede their abilities. Whether it was for detaining them, or genuinely trying to kill them, they didn't know his true goal in their fight, but they didn't let up all the same.

The InoShikaCho trio brought out their strongest fighting style yet: The Clairvoyant Shadow Giant (name pending), in which Shikamaru uses his highest skill to become one with the shadows, completely covers Chouji's giant form in his shadows, making him somewhat camouflaged against the night sky, then Ino jumps up the head and uses her most powerful skill on Chouji's brain.

_The Mad Hatter: You obtain the ability to link your mental state with another's, exponentially increasing their cognitive abilities as well as sharing with them any clan skills that you have. You cannot move when this is happening, but you also become intangible to any attacks that the enemy throws at you._

With all three of them combined, Shikamaru enhanced Chouji's already near imperviousness and gave him higher speed, strength, and agility while in his giant form. Ino combined with the both of them to bring their calculation power up tenfold, allowing the use of countless tentacles that grew from Chouji's back with immaculate precision.

Together with Sasuke, they managed to cover Obito's entire body with a huge amount of tiny injuries. A lost finger here, a snapped bone there, a sliced tendon over here. Obito was slowing down and was beginning to think of ways to get back to Madara so he wouldn't have to use his teleportation skills to just stay alive. Teleportation skills that the Uzumaki would probably pick up on and use to his advantage.

His plans were cut short when Anko gave an enraged war cry and burst into the scene, punching Obito straight in the chest and cracking a few ribs as he flew away from her and bounced across the ocean. She appeared above and below him at the same time, punching him in the face and cracking the mask while the one under him kicked him in the small of the back, misaligning his spinal column. They both grabbed one leg each and spun him around, throwing him to the beach where another Anko was waiting with her hand outstretched.

Obito flew through the air and was caught by the throat, then pushed to the ground with a knee against his chest, pinning him there. The Uchiha got his first good look at this new assailant, becoming surprised at the ferocity of her appearance. All her skin was practically purple with black veins pulsating underneath her skin. Her eyes were yellowing and she was drooling an unholy mixture of spit, puss, and blood. Her muscles bunched out against the fabric and chakra was radiating from her body, lifting up her hair slightly and giving her a godly appearance.

"Where's Naruto?" she rasped out. No punches were pulled by her. If she was going to get results, then she couldn't afford a long confrontation. Her Blood Corruption level was looking at around 90% by the time she was done taking all the strength, speed, and chakra elixirs. She was definitely going to feel it in the morning, but that was a future Anko problem. Present Anko had ass to kick and emotions to suppress.

Obito grabbed some sand and flung it in her face. Probably one of the most simple and underhanded tactics amongst people who breathed fireballs for a living, but effective nonetheless. Anko reeled back a little, giving Obito the time needed to wriggle out of her grip and headbutt her, causing an immediate stream of blackened scarlet blood to come gushing out of her nose from the hardness of his cracked mask.

He willed a small kunai out of his small dimension, grabbed it, and plunged it forward at Anko's chest. He wasn't expecting her to grab the blade and crush it in her hand. She wiped away the sand from her eyes and glared at him, now looking even more demonic. Her other hand disappeared from her side and reappeared spearing his head right down the middle. What caused Anko confusion was the very obvious lack of blood spray and viscera. It was like punching thin air.

Her knee fell into his chest as he became intangible, dragging himself away from her and running as fast as he could towards the Jyuubi. The land he was walking on turned as black as pitch as the shadows solidified underneath his feet. They turned to spears and needles which entered his body at all angles, though he kept on running through them undeterred. Normally, dodging attacks like those would be child's play, but he'd sustained far too many serious injuries to do much of anything other than lessen the amount of times he had use his intangibility and hope to all the gods in the world that the Uzumaki in his separate dimension was more thick than he gave him credit for.

Chouji's daunting figure stepped on him. Sasuke shot arrows and sliced straight through him with his sword. Anko summoned giant snakes to do their best to eat him, but all those attacks passed right through him.

00000000

Naruto looked at the body parts suddenly coming into existence with a fair amount of apprehension. Usually they just sort of came and went within milliseconds, but other times they stayed around for a little bit longer.

Ever since he'd been transported to Obito's Kamui dimension, he hadn't been able to feel any of the markers for the Hiraishin that he had around the elemental nations. But if this guy was able to travel between the dimensions…

"I've got an idea," Naruto said, mostly to himself.

The next time a body part came into existence in front of him, Naruto rushed forward and placed a Hiraishin seal on it. When it was gone, he could feel it somewhat, but there wasn't enough precision in it to actually teleport to his location. It was like the Hiraishin seal was everywhere around him at once, but was gone whenever he tried to focus on any single point.

Naruto grabbed his chin and tapped his foot. There had to be a way out of this dimension and the world spitting out new matter on a semi-regular basis had to be connected to it somehow. He grabbed his head and meticulously went through every detail that he knew of the situation at that point.

1.) He was placed in a dimension apart from the one where he normally lived by the man who apparently created the Guidebook.

2.) The dimension was bare except for weapons or other things that would be useful to have at a moment's notice.

3.) The only thing that connected those dimensions was the masked man.

4.) Naruto could not feel any of the markers for the Hiraishin save for the one he put on the man, though it was practically worthless.

There had to be something in there that could give him an edge in escaping, but what?

Naruto narrowed his eyes suddenly, then looked at his fingers and back to the space where the body parts were materializing. "I think… I've got a really bad idea."

Naruto put a Hiraishin seal along the side of his middle finger, then got ready for the next body part to appear.

00000000

Obito was running across the taut surface of the ocean as best he could when Anko appeared before him, hefting a giant rock at his torso.

He had to at least give them credit for getting creative.

He teleported his upper torso through this attack like all the other attacks they sent his way, but this time was different. Obito fell to the floor, now in even more searing agony than he was in before. He clutched his gut, unable to stem the flow of blood from falling through his hands and into the ocean. There was a wriggling in his stomach, like a nest of small snakes or worms had dug their way in and were looking for different ways out.

Using all the willpower left to him, he dug into his stomach slightly and tried to retrieve the unknown prehensile objects, but they were locked in place. As soon as he touched them, the air began to distort around him in strange and mysterious ways. He was jolted to the side by a sudden expansion and contraction of space. Then he was pushed underwater, a few feet up into the air, all around as the miniature space explosions popped up more and more frequently until they reached a fever pitch.

The world paused for a beat. Then another beat. Then another. Obito even managed to get a single shaky arm steady on the surface of the water before the mother of all space explosions came from his stomach and extended outward, completely exploding Obito's torso open and outwards and sending him away from the world to sink into the ocean waves.

At the epicenter of the large space explosion was the form of Naruto on his elbows and knees, forehead beaded with sweat as he gasped for air. His right arm was broken apart all the way up to the elbow. No amount of healing chakra was going to make it usable ever again.

Naruto shakily got up and surveyed his surroundings, becoming especially concerned at the sight of Team Naruto fighting the Jyuubi, but even more so when he couldn't sense Fu anywhere in the vicinity.

"Naruto!" came the shout of Anko as she ran up to him. She wrapped her arms around him like her life depended on it and leaned her entire body against his. She was exhausted and falling apart at the seams, though Naruto wasn't faring much better than her on the first front.

The chakra expenditure of the Hiraishin depended solely on distance traveled rather than the size of the thing traveling. Teleporting all the way across the continent and back might drop Naruto about a third of his total chakra. Teleporting across the dimensions reduced him to about a tenth.

Sakura came up to him next and immediately began stemming the flow of blood coming from the stump of his right arm. "What did you do? What happened?"

"Trapped in a separate dimension. Hiraishin didn't work. Stuck my hand in that guy. Hiraishin worked again," Naruto eyed his broken arm, as if noticing it for the first time "kind of. Where's Fu?"

Sakura refused to meet his eye and bit her lip nervously. "I-I'm sorry. She passed."

Naruto blinked. "She passed? W-Where, what did she pass?"

"Naruto," Anko whispered, her face contorted in pain both physical and emotional. "Jinchuuriki don't survive getting their bijuu removed," she said quietly, tears flowing from her eyes and onto his shirt.

Naruto backed away and pushed Anko to an arm's length. Their eyes met for a moment before Anko looked down again. "I-I-I can heal her."

"Naruto…" Anko started.

"N-N-No no no, it's true. I'm the best medic there is. I-I can heal her. Where is she?"

"You can't heal death," Anko said a little more firmly, though she still couldn't meet his gaze.

"WELL I HAVE TO TRY!" Naruto shouted. He walked past Anko and started walking to the sandy shore as quickly as he could while Sakura was operating on his arm.

Anko walked up to Naruto and clamped a hand down on his shoulder. She planned to turn him around and shout some sense into him, but something stopped both her and him in their tracks. It wasn't any emotional revelation or anything, but more a physical inability to move.

She looked down at what was stopping her and became more confused than anything else. There was a… spear? A rod? A long pointy black thing was sticking out of her stomach. Already, her blackened blood was pooling and spreading out in the water below her. Her eyes traced the rod up out of her stomach to where it ended, Naruto's back. She puked up blood suddenly and collapsed on the rolling water, muscle memory being the only thing that kept her on its surface, bringing Naruto down with her.

The Uzumaki extricated himself away from the spear with the help of Sakura and a lot of pain, but he wasn't focusing on himself. Sickly looking clones poofed into being and carried the two injured parties to the beach, where they could be operated on properly.

Sasuke, Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji followed along, all of them filled with worry over the well-being of Naruto and Anko.

"What happened?" Sasuke asked, sounding more frantic than usual.

"It was the Masked Man," Ino said. "That blast didn't completely kill him. I felt the last of his chakra go into sending that rod into Naruto, but Anko was in the way too. Fuck! I should have been more aware of him."

"It takes a while for humans to drown," Shikamaru said. "You shouldn't beat yourself up over it. No one could have predicted that would happen."

"Is he still alive?" Chouji asked fearfully.

"His chakra's completely gone," Ino said, shaking her head. "And not just gone as in teleported away. Gone as in depleted to the point of death. We won't have to worry about him anymore," Ino turned around to look at the Jyuubi which was going through the last transformation, into a buff looking titan with a shell on its back and a warped head. "Which is good, considering what we still have to fight.

"What do we do?" Chouji asked. "Do we… follow him?"

"No," Sakura answered over her shoulder. "Go help everyone else fight the Jyuubi, you'd be no help here."

The InoShikaCho trio nodded unsurely and ran off to fight the Jyuubi. Sasuke followed at a slightly slower pace, looking over his shoulder at Naruto before he turned away and broke into a full sprint.

By the time Naruto, Sakura, and Anko reached the sandy shore of the beach Naruto's arm was healed to the point where it no longer bled and his midsection wound was closing itself off. Anko, who was walking with the help of two Naruto's, finally felt her legs give out from under her and stumbled to the ground.

"Shit, this is bad," one of the clones said. "Her wounds… I can't heal them. They aren't accepting my healing chakra."

Anko tried to tell him something, but only succeeded in puking up some more blood.

Sakura went rummaging through Anko's belt. "It's her Blood Corruption. From what I understand, it does help in battle situations, but it also lowers the body's ability to heal itself and to accept healing from outside sources. I can… however…" Sakura's hands lit up with bluish green chakra as they hovered around her stomach. One of her hands slowly went up her torso, throat, and finally her mouth, where Anko's eyes bulged open as she puked up a particularly large load of bile and blood.

"There," Sakura said, already a bead of sweat on her brow. "She can talk now. Anko, what is your Blood Corruption level at?"

Anko's eyes were bleary and unfocused. Everything that she saw was a sort of blur. Words started making less and less sense. "I… I-I don't know… high? Too high."

Naruto clasped her hand in his sole usable one, unsure of what to do, feeling so very powerless right now. "A-Anko," he whispered.

"Listen Anko," Sakura demanded, eyes scrunching up from the focus required to keep blood out of her stomach and windpipe. "I need you to tell me if you have any other consumables that help regenerate your body with a small Blood Corruption stat."

"T-There's… uhmm… one that's dark blue on my hip belt… or was it in… one of my thigh pouches?" Anko started a little bit, but her eyes were still unfocused. "W-Where am I?"

"Shit," Sakura cursed as she undid a navy blue concoction on Anko's belt. "She's lost a lot blood. Too much. She's not going to make it at this rate." The medic uncorked the seal of the vial on Anko and forced the liquid down her throat, praying to whatever god there was that that was the correct way to consume it as she massaged her throat to get her body to automatically swallow it.

Anko blinked a lot of times. Immediately, her sickly purple skin darkened and the black of her veins intruded even more into her face. Her eyes clouded to a sickly yellowish white with the pupils only barely visible. She looked around a lot, not comprehending anything. "Naruto?" she whispered.

"Yes! I'm right here!" Naruto said loudly, desperately.

"I… I need to tell you something."

"I'm right here," he said, kneeling in, his forehead practically resting on hers, he was so close.

"I… I don't regret anything," she whispered, barely audible in his ear.

"No! Don't say something like that! You're going to pull through!"

Anko lethargically closed and opened her eyes, the only thing left that she could do to express anything resembling a humor. "We both know… that's being really optimistic."

Naruto didn't say anything, his hot tears falling on her face and flowing down her cheeks.

"I have to say, I'm really glad that when… you needed a teacher… all that time ago… that you chose me." She closed and opened her eyes lethargically. "I'm really… really…"

Anko didn't speak anymore. She stopped breathing. She stopped moving.

Sakura's hand moved over to Anko's heart to confirm that it stopped beating. Her lowered head told the answer.

Naruto moved Anko's head towards his. He leaned down and planted one last kiss on her cold lips before kneeling up and moving a sliding a hand down her eyes, closing them. His face was wrenched in pain and his body was wracked with sobs. Finally, everything burst out at once as he faced the sky and belted his sorrow to the heavens in the hardest scream of pain anyone could ever make or hear. The sound of a person losing who they considered to be one of their most precious people.

That scream of pain appeared to also hold the last of his energy, as when he finally stopped, he merely slumped back to the ground with his head held up only by his spine.

A single sniffle. "Fu too?" was all he asked.

Sakura's silence spoke for her.

"Where is she?"

Sakura looked up to see him. He'd moved his head to face hers. He looked like a corpse.

Sakura wordlessly pointed behind her to where Fu's body was resting. Naruto looked back down to Anko and picked her up in a bridal carry, going on a slow trek to place her next to Fu.

As Naruto looked at the lifeless bodies, he remembered that they weren't the only casualties of the microwar going on.

But they were the only ones that mattered.

A sopping wet presence made itself known next to his leg. She shook herself off and gazed forlornly at the bodies of the two females that her partner was closest to.

"Naruto…" Kashikoi said sullenly, gone was her normal chipper tone of voice that spoke of nothing but a burning desire to let her thoughts known. "I know what you're thinking. We've been together for as long as I can remember, and that's not me speaking hyperbolically. Don't do it."

Naruto sniffled. "We… barely had a chance to be together. I… I had so many plans. So many things that I didn't get to tell them. So many things that we never got to fight about, laugh about, cry about… So many."

"There's… more than them, though. Your life is not solely yours to throw away. Your life belongs to me, and Jiraiya, and Tsunade, and Sakura, and everyone else that gives a damn about you. We love you."

Naruto's face went blank.

_We love you._

How many times as a child had he desperately wanted to hear those words? How many times had he spoken up for people whose voices weren't loud enough? How many times did he act out to get attention? How many times did he fantasize about hearing those three words?

They felt hollow and insincere now.

"I just… want this to be over."

"I know you do. We all do. But you… doing what you thinks need to be done isn't what needs to be done."

"No," Naruto agreed. "What I want to do isn't what needs to be done. It's what I want to do."

Red flames erupted around his skin and congealed into a cloak made purely out of the Kyuubi's unfettered chakra in the shape of a long jacket colored red and black. His eyes changed forms rapidly, first gaining the red irises and slit pupils present in the Kyuubi mode, then the sideways bar present in the Toad Sage mode, then the bulging veins around the eyes present in the Byakugan, then the swirling tomoes present in the Sharingan. Around his body, the elements distorted and changed, coming together in all their combinations and permutations, including the inky blackness that happened when all five combined. Naruto sought out V-chan in the sand where he dropped it before and pushed a single button in the middle. It latched onto his body and began to ebb and flow its own chakra with his, eventually assimilating into him and giving his skin a pale golden color with lines representing its new somewhat mechanical nature.

Naruto stood at full height and stared off in the distance. He could see an eight headed snake doing battle with the Jyuubi. Two giant dogs, one with two heads and one with four. Titans made out of normal chakra performing gentle fist strikes all over the Jyuubi. An army of battle toads hopping around. The InoShikaCho's Clairvoyant Shadow Giant. A beetle the size of a tailed beast directing a swarm of bugs into battle. A tangle of wooden dragons. An army of flying sharks. Sasuke's Susanoo. Guy's Evening Elephant. Kakashi's grand lighting jutsu.

The Uzumaki took a calming breath and began running towards the Jyuubi.

00000000

Water and Sand.

That was all that he could feel.

Long gone was his sight, vanished around the third minute into his little 'battle'. He couldn't hear or taste or smell, those senses were fried too. Or maybe they worked, but were just clogged with fried blood, he didn't know.

Naruto was searching for something, crawling on his hands and knees into the familiar soggy sand of the beach. He couldn't stand up, nervous system was practically fried. He didn't have any skin either, not that he knew, as pain wasn't there anymore.

There was a reason why he shouldn't use all his powers and modes all at the same time. He became a god for the time that he used them, but that godliness came at a price, namely his life.

Naruto was going to die, that much he knew. At least Madara was dead with him. It wasn't a fair fight at all. Like a cat who was batting around a mouse, somewhat confused as to why it wasn't dead yet. Madara died eventually, but it was too close for comfort in Naruto's opinion.

His friends were around, picking themselves up in varying amounts of pain and confusion. They were alive and that's all Naruto cared about so far as they were concerned.

He had a mission, though. One last quest, even if the Guidebook wasn't telling him it was.

Naruto finally found what he was looking for despite working only on memory of his surroundings and the broken sense of touch he employed.

A hand, cold and clammy. Naruto held onto it like a lifeline and turned his body over so he could face the sky. He couldn't see anything, just the touch of Anko's or Fu's hand. He didn't even know which one it was that he was holding onto.

He didn't care, either.

Before he let death take him, there was one last thing he felt. Like snakes tangling themselves around his legs and ankles, but they were slippery and slimy and didn't appear to be too enthused about being on dry land.

Serpents.

Serpents… those were… important, right?

00000000

"Hey, wake up."

Naruto sat up, gasping for breath and looking around with rapidly blinking eyes. Sterile white walls, sterile air, sterile bed, sterile clothes.

He was in a hospital.

He was alive!

He was alive?

Naruto looked to the person who had spoken in confusion. It was… a kid. Well, not a kid, in fact they were probably the same age, but the guy in front of him was a civilian, a person whose mental age was far less developed than his own.

He didn't look any different than any other person to walk down the street. Brown hair, brown eyes, normal clothing, normal height, unassuming facial expression.

"I'm… alive?" Naruto asked breathlessly, beginning to check his body all around for signs of scarring or things that shouldn't be there.

The person found that statement amusing, if the slight huff of a laughter was any indication. "No, you're super dead."

Naruto blinked and squinted his eyes in confusion. "What?"

The person clicked his tongue and bade Naruto to follow him. "Come on, follow me, it'll make sense in a minute."

Naruto flipped the sheets over his body and got out of the bed, fully expecting to be at least somewhat physically encumbered, but found that his body moved the same as it always did. The Uzumaki fast walked to the guy who was already at the door.

"What were you talking about?" Naruto asked.

The guy looked at Naruto and said nothing as he opened the door. Out of it was a blank whiteness that burned Naruto's eyes. Panels of the same whiteness came from nowhere and arranged themselves into a haphazard walkway that led onto oblivion.

The guy led the way onto the path, expecting Naruto to follow, which he did. "I'm the guy you were talking to before. The Guidebook, as you so affectionately called me."

Naruto followed along. As he did so, more panels of whiteness came up to his sides and began playing clips that showed a third person view of key moments in his life. Although he recognized some; his meeting with Anko, the chunin exam catastrophe, Fu beating that lake serpent thingy; there were also some that he didn't recognize; Mizuki transformed into some sort of spider monster, a battle with Sasuke before his trip with Jiraiya, even an adult Naruto next to Hinata and two kids who looked suspiciously like their children.

Blinking a few times to process what the Guidebook said, Naruto asked "But weren't you a girl?"

The Guidebook laughed fully at that question. "Out of all the things that you could ask, that's the one that gets precedence?"

Naruto was about to indignantly respond, but the Guidebook changed forms from the cookie cutter NPC look to a girl of about thirteen with red hair that went down her back and a black sundress that clashed violently with the whiteness of everything else. "Is this what you were expecting?" It changed forms again into a burly black man bulging with muscles and a thick head. "Or this?" It changed again into an abstract looking angel made up of angled polygons and only a basic human form. "Maybe this?"

Holding up a hand and nodding, Naruto said "Okay, I got it. You're abstract. No need to be a smartass."

The Guidebook laughed again, changing into its first form. "I can't help it. There's only so much social interaction I'm afforded and this is one of those times. I have to have my fun when I can."

Naruto nodded, looking again to the panels showing his life… lives as he walked along slightly behind him. "What is… all of this?"

"Remember when I talked about the multiverse theory?"

Naruto nodded.

"Well, this is it." Another panel floated up in front of the Guidebook as he paused for a moment to let Naruto catch up to his side. A single black line was drawn across the middle. "That's what I call the main timeline," the Guidebook said. "To briefly sum up, in the main timeline, I never exist. The chunin exams happen differently. You never meet Fu until she's already dead. The only relation you have to Anko is that she's the weird psycho lady that really likes dango. You and a team chase after Sasuke and fail to retrieve him. You go on the trip with Jiraiya like you did in this timeline, but it's far less effective. Gaara dies and is brought back to life. Asuma dies and isn't. The Fourth Shinobi war breaks out and all the five nations bind together to face this threat. Neji dies. The real threat, Lady Kaguya surfaces and Team 7 takes here down. All the Bijuu run free and the world develops far more quickly without any more war. You settle down with Hinata and have a few children. A few more things happen, but that's just the gist."

As he spoke, more panels floated up around Naruto to show him brief clips of those things happening.

The black line on the main panel split along the middle and offshoots parallel to the main one. "That's the timeline where I was made." Even more offshoots branch off the branched path and even more branch off of those until it became impossible to follow them with any accuracy. "With every choice becomes a new possibility with a new outcome and a new universe. I can only change starting conditions when making a new universe and hope that the new Naruto figures it out."

"So then… I'm not the first Naruto that you've done this to?"

The Guidebook scratched his head embarrassedly. "No, you're the third. For the first one, I decided on a JRPG type game, a game type that resembles yours, but the stats and mechanics of the game were waaayy too complex for the first one. He went for help and got locked up in an insane asylum. I decided to go for a different genre entirely for the second one, a first person shooter, but that one ended up with him accidentally killing himself. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to slim down JRPG type and try again, which leads me to you."

All of this information was starting to fly over his head, but Naruto felt like he understood the basics of what happened. "But… if you have all this power, why videogames?"

The Guidebook shrugged. "Why indeed. Every power has a constraint to it. You become a god for all of five minutes before you die. Reset reality, but your eye closes forever. Unlock all eight gates, and you know where I'm going. I am able to change reality, but only in the constraints of a videogame. Obito didn't think something like this would happen when he made me."

"Obito?"

"The masked man. Oh, in the main timeline, you're able to redeem him by the way. He's actually not that bad a guy, but that's neither here nor there, though."

Naruto looked around at all the panels with growing wonder. "So you can see into all these different realities?"

"Nope," he said, shaking his head. "These are the images and videos of my three failed timelines along with the main one. I can only show what's been recorded. Only that which I have been shown can be recorded. Well, I guess that's not true. I can also show my simulations, but those aren't always accurate, I'm coming to find out."

"Simulations?"

"When I'm kicking around a new idea in here, I can set up a faulty universe and watch how things are _supposed _to play out. Often times, however, it has trouble coping with a human element. They're usually accurate within the first few months, though."

"So… could I see what happens in my timeline? You know after I, uh, die?"

A panel floated up directly in front of Naruto. It flickered open into the scene of a funeral. In front of the coffin was a picture of him, one where he was smiling without a care in the world. He actually recognized that picture too. He took it with Anko and Fu on the top of the monument the morning after they came to their threesome relationship arrangement, though they were cropped out for obvious reasons.

In the procession were his closest friends and-

Wait a minute. In the group he could see a shock of green hair clad in somber black mourning clothes in a wheelchair. Pushing her through the procession was none other than Anko, the snake mistress herself. Naruto grabbed that panel like a lifeline and stared at them, tears beginning to well up in his eyes. "They're… alive?"

The Guidebook nodded. "Oh, they live. Anko nearly went over her Blood Corruption level, but went just shy of four points. Put her in a coma for two months and she couldn't use chakra ever again in her life, but she lives. And Fu, well you know how Kashikoi got gills after she 'killed' Kisame?"

Naruto nodded.

"Well, Fu killed this guy named Kabuto and he had a perk that she inherited, which gave her near instantaneous healing so long as she had chakra in her body. She woke up a few days later. As you can guess, everyone was pretty sad about you dying, especially when your reason for doing so was mired in misunderstanding."

Naruto felt like bashing his head into the panel and curse himself or his decision, but the panel floated away before he could.

"I guess you didn't know, but all the other villages were wiped out except for Iwa and the smaller ones. Your world almost got split apart into another war, but Tsunade managed to avert it and bring about a grudging peace. Anything beyond that seems inaccurate. Fu also incorrectly did the anti-pregnancy seal and was pregnant with your child. It was birthed perfectly healthy and Anko and Fu decide to raise it together. Things get fuzzy after that, but hey, happy ending, right?"

Naruto didn't look like he thought it was a happy ending. In fact, he looked downright dour. "But I'm not with them."

The Guidebook shrugged. "Nope, I guess you're not."

Naruto looked past the panels to see that the walkway actually did end a little ways away with a small, somewhat circular floor surrounded with panels.

"Funnily enough, that leads me to my next and final topic of conversation," The Guidebook said. "You see, I only want to make a fun videogame. That's all. That's it. I fucked up the first one, I shouldn't have even tried the second one, and since you actually managed to pass the third one, even if you died right after, you get a special option. Normally, when you die without beating the game, you get sent here so we can have the same sort of conversation before you're given two choices: _New Game, _or _Quit._ The new game choice ends your current stream of consciousness under the idea that I will start it over again with a new game and new rules. Quitting ensures that you die and your soul gets passed on."

By the time he was done talking, Naruto and the Guidebook were in the middle of the end of the walkway, gazing at all the screens and all the content they had in them. The sound of panels sliding over panels brought Naruto's attention to the middle of the floor, where a rectangular box floated up with a panel slanted at an angle so that Naruto could read it. On it were three options: _New Game, Quit, _and _New Game+._

"For the _New Game+ _option, your soul goes back in time to spot where I created your start point and begins again the with the same mechanics and the same game, but with all the memories that you have retained up until this point. Conversely, I believe that I have learned a lot from watching you 'play' this game, so I've thought up better mechanics and a more streamlined experience. If you put your trust into me, you could have a different experience, a better one."

Naruto looked at those three options for a long while. "So, for one, I get my soul sent to by body back in Wave, where it all started, with all my knowledge of the events about to happen. For two, you make a new game that I can play with better mechanics and a better experience. For three, I get sent to the afterlife."

The Guidebook nodded. "In the future, I could probably figure out how you could get all your memories back from all your previous existences, but it would have to be constrained into this place that we're currently in."

Naruto nodded. "So I could eventually learn about all my past lives here, when I either fail or succeed with the first two options."

"Yes, that's correct."

A faint smile brushed Naruto's lips. "So this isn't the end then. For me, there's no such thing as _the end_. There's only ever… _an end_." Naruto smiled fully and pushed the _New Game+ _option. "I'm going to do it again. I'm going to do it better. Everyone's going to be happy. Nobody will have to suffer."

The Guidebook nodded. "As you wish."

Naruto vanished from existence. All the panels that surrounded the Guidebook fell apart and materialized into a screen that would put even the largest movie theater screens to shame. On it, it showed Naruto getting up out of a rickety bed in a cabin of a house in the middle of Wave country. He was pulling his pants on and going through the guidebook, full of energy and a new hope.

The Guidebook smiled, already enjoying Naruto's new choices and actions.

"An end, huh?"


	42. an epilogue

The Epilogue

Naruto huffed and puffed as he whacked aside the underbrush and shrubbery getting in his way. Already, his outfit was holding onto his body by the barest of threads and was soaked in all a manner of excretions. He found out the hard way what Shikamaru had been telling him about those Raid Zones, as a few monsters of unknown level had taught him.

He forgot how utterly useless he used to be. Chakra was low. Chakra control was even lower. Speed and strength abysmal. Wisdom and intelligence… well he never really understood those two no matter how he raised them. Anyway, the point was, Naruto wasn't used to being in the body of a child after being so strong for so long. The good thing was that he'd leveled a few times on the way to where he was going just by managing to survive and run away from any of the encounters with unknown beings and every time he raised a level, his health recovered. If it weren't for that fact, he'd be long dead by now.

The Uzumaki brushed past a final tree line and made his way into a small clearing. In the middle was a tiny pond that probably couldn't sustain any fish longer than his hand with some parts of it obscured in the shade by trees with far reaching branches. Underneath the largest tree was a bookshelf filled to the brim with thick volumes, a portable bed, and some other knick-knacks having to do with the shinobi profession. Somewhere off in the distance, he could hear the bubbling of a medium sized waterfall.

Smiling, Naruto cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted "FFUUUU!"

As soon as he woke up in Tsunami's house in Wave, he ran full tilt all the way to Waterfall, or at least the outskirts of Waterfall, where Fu lived before she went to Konoha for the chunin exams. Naruto was going fully off of memory of what she told him her home was like. To escape the discrimination of her people, she made a little home away from home outside of the village and only reported in with her teammates for missions. As she started to spend more and more time away from her house in the village, the little hovel at the outskirts became her main base of operations.

There was a rustling of leaves to Naruto's left. Looking at the source of the sound, Naruto came to gaze at the adolescent version of Fu looking at him apprehensively. She didn't say much of anything as she took in Naruto's look with a measured eye. "Can I… help you?" she asked.

Naruto limped forward to the tree she was standing on with his hands up. "I'm not- I'm not a threat I promise, it's just that- just that I really need to tell you something."

Fu hopped down from the tree, though she didn't let her guard down. "I-If you have something to say, I will hear it."

Naruto came within a foot of her, already invading her comfort zone. "I know this is going to sound crazy, and maybe it is. But you and I… we're going to be best friends in the future. And what else-"

00000000

Naruto woke up in the white room with a gasp of shock, sitting up immediately while rubbing his neck. "What the hell happened?" he asked no one in particular.

"She cut your head off, dude."

Naruto looked at the Guidebook, who was now in the visage of some random chunin mook. "What?"

"She cut off your head," he said more firmly.

"B-But why?"

"I'm not sure if you could see yourself, but you looked like a crazy weirdo about five seconds away from doing something really really weird. It was actually kind of amusing to see."

"Wait… but that means…" Naruto groaned at his own stupidity and covered his face in his hands. "Does that mean that I don't get a _New Game+_ option since I didn't beat the game this time?"

"Once you beat it the first time, you can try over as many times as you want. Guess I should have been more clear about that," he said with a shrug. "Come on, up at at em. I'm assuming you want to go again?"

Naruto nodded, still somewhat dour at learning one of the people he most loved had beheaded him.

00000000

Naruto stood back and watched the fight unfold in front of his eyes. Sasuke was acting like a tank, for the most part, protected inside his Susanoo armor while Sakura did most of the damage to Madara. This time around, she'd gotten more into the taijutsu side of things and was one of the few people who could get a solid hit on the guy. That being said, she couldn't defend against his attacks, which is where Naruto came in, Hiraishining her away from the fight whenever things were getting too dicey and forcing Sasuke to do some distracting.

This time around, he decided to let only a select few people into the party system. Sasuke, Sakura, and Anko were the only ones who made the cut that time. At first, made it seem like he was as in the dark about the game as they were, to keep things simple, but they eventually got the truth out of him about how their timeline was actually his third attempt at that particular game, fifth if he was counting the ones he couldn't remember.

It was during this particular instance of the game that Naruto felt like he finally got everything out of it that he wanted. To level up, he went on raids with his teammate. He diverted war, brought the nations together to defeat a White Zetsu army with minimal losses. He even found out that the Kyuubi was an actual sentient being with a name instead of just a mass of hateful chakra. That point particularly stung as he thought about how long he kept Kurama cooped up inside of him in his failed timeline. At least he managed to worm his way into Anko's heart, though it was substantially harder than before what with her actually seeing him grow from a youth to an adult since he decided to opt out of Jiraiya's training circuit. Naruto eventually found and befriended Fu, but nothing more. The more time he spent with her, the more he realized that she really only needed a friend who understood her.

Things went… nicely this time. All of his friends survived, Anko was at home holding a swollen belly, the nations were getting over their shit, and the last boss was looking like he was just about to go down.

The final bit of Madara's health bar ticked down as he was consumed by a black shadow and imploded into an entirely new person.

_Mother Kaguya, the Last Boss_

"Oh come on!" all three of Team 7 exclaimed at once.

00000000

Naruto woke up gasping for air and clutching at his chest. He sat up and looked around, almost surprised at seeing the Guidebook by his bedside. "Wh-What happened?" Naruto asked, looking at his hands. His body had reverted back to when he was in the prime of his life.

The Guidebook nodded slowly and understandingly. "I guess I should have put in a system where you can choose your path right after you complete the game. My bad, seriously. Are you okay? No dementia? Alzheimer's all cleared up?"

Naruto's only response was to blink a few times.

The Guidebook nodded. "Right, I should have guessed that you wouldn't be particularly right in the head after living to the ripe old age of 96. Good for you, by the way. 96 is a pretty old age to die."

Naruto slowly got out of bed and checked his body all over. He pointed at the Guidebook with a furrowed brow. "You're from… you're from the game, aren't you? The Guidebook."

The Guidebook nodded. "I just implemented that thing about you getting your memories from all the universes that you've experienced before while chilling out in this room. Feel any different?"

Clutching his head, Naruto could think of a few things conflicting with his memory. Why did he remember marrying both Anko and Hinata? He remembered dying more than once before.

Finally, all the cobwebs cleared from Naruto's perception and he remembered everything of import.

"Right, well, I'm going to guess that since you made peace with your death and everything that you're going to want to hit the _Quit_ button, but I implore you to think of the _New Game_ option. Over the years, I've cooked up so many awesome games for you to play," The Guidebook said as enticingly as it could. It seemed very nervous as it clutched its fingers together and bounced up and down on his heels.

Naruto had lived life to its fullest. He'd done everything he'd wanted. Ushered in an era of peace and happiness, created a world where progressive ideas and sciences were allowed to flourish, created a family large enough that he never had to live in an empty house ever again, and finally died comfortably in a hospital surrounded by his greatest friends and accomplices. By all means, he was done with life. He was okay with it.

The Uzumaki smiled. "What sort of games are we talking about here?"

00000000

Hack 'n Slash

With a final flourish of the wrist, Naruto beheaded Lady Kaguya, the demonic princess atop the mountaintop of Truth and Justice. He flicked the blood off of his six foot long sword and put it back into its sheath on his back. The head of the Great Oppressor felt weighty in his hands. He walked to the edge, where all the peoples of the world gathered and showed held the head above his head.

A roar of cheer and gratitude rose from the crowds of gleeful citizens. No more would they have to worry about sacrificing their teenagers to compete in bloody games for the amusement of Lady Kaguya. No more would they have to endure the weighty hand of her Dark Army. They were free to live in peace and happiness.

Naruto tossed the head down the cliff and looked at the screen that opened up to him. The thing that caught his eye was the golden S at the corner of the screen. All the other stats that rolled down below didn't mean anything to him.

The top of the mountain was covered in the blood of the remnants of Lady Kaguya's Dark army, but her throne was conspicuously devoid of anything of the sort. Naruto walked up it with great reverence and sat down.

There was the clacking of high heel boots as his chosen wife, Samui the Ice Sorceress walked from behind the throne and to his side.

"We have liberated the world from the tyranny of the Great Oppressor. What more is there to do?" she asked.

Naruto wasn't listening to her at all, though. He was more preoccupied with the new screen that popped up in front of his face. It wasn't like any screen he'd ever seen before ever since that fateful day at his birth when he was selected as the Chosen One at the Altar of Heroism.

Naruto touched it and fell unconscious

00000000

He woke up in the hospital bed, trying to process all the new memories from his other lives. It took a solid three minutes before anything made sense, but when they did, he swung his legs off of the bed and addressed the Guidebook. "Maybe don't spawn me in a world that's made up of videogame elements at birth next time."

The Guidebook nodded. "I was just thinking the same thing."

00000000

Dating Simulator.

Naruto grunted in pain as he was knocked backwards onto his ass. Opening his eyes, he found what he'd bumped into, a girl that he'd seen around the village at times with her two other strange teammates and sensei. She was rubbing the side of her forehead, where she and he collided.

"Are you okay?" Naruto asked, getting up before her and offering a hand of support.

Tenten gladly took it. "Yeah, I'm fine. Guess I should've watched where I was going," she said before laughing a little bit to show that she found herself at fault for their collision as well.

A window opened up in front of Naruto as the world around him froze completely.

_Wow, you look super strong. Do you work out?_

_This must be fate. Would you like to go out with me?_

_Is that a kunai in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?_

Naruto groaned in exasperation. That was the third time that had happened since that night in wave. First with Tsunami, then with Sakura. The only he got from those two were cheeks alight with embarrassment and a bruised rib respectively. He still didn't know what was going on, so he picked the one that sounded least creepy.

"Wow, you look super strong. Do you work out?" The words flowed from his mouth without his mind telling his body to let them out. He was fully expecting a sort of creeped out awkward smile as she tried to get away from as soon as she could (after all, girls didn't like being related to having a muscular body, right?). What he wasn't expecting was a dusting of a blush on her cheeks as she processed what he said before averting her gaze slightly downwards while she fought back a bit of a smile.

"I-I mean, I have to keep top form after all. I am aiming to be world's strongest kunoichi."

_Sorry, I should introduce myself. I'm Naruto. It's nice to meet you. Are you late for anything?_

_That's cool. I'm Naruto. Wanna bone?_

_Naruto's the name, don't wear it out. And you are, beautiful?_

"Sorry, I should introduce myself. I'm Naruto. It's nice to meet you. Are you late for anything?" At least with this girl the choices were rather clear-cut, as he couldn't think of a time when he would ever use the two other choices. Tsunami and Sakura's were rather… let's just say he never wanted to see Tsunami ever again and he doubted Sakura would talk to him for at least a month.

"Hi, I'm Tenten," she said, recovering from her prior embarrassment. "And no, I just got finished training. Why?"

_No reason. Peace out!_

_Because you're pretty and I want to take you out for a date._

_So I know the name of the person whose head I will display on my mantelpiece._

Naruto really wanted to pick the first option and be done with this weird back-and-forth, but something kept him from immediately choosing it. Whether it was curiosity over what would happen next or wanting to test out the constraints of the game, Naruto chose the second option. Though he did have to scratch his head at the third.

"Because you're pretty and I want to take you out for a date."

Tenten's face turned a bright vermillion. Wide-eyed, she drew a foot backward for support and looked at Naruto more fully. He a bit shorter than her and had pretty unruly hair, but his face wasn't bad and she remembered seeing him in the academy in passing so she knew that he was only one year younger than her. This was the first time that a boy had shown actual romantic interest in her and it wasn't like she had any actual reason to refuse other than mild embarrassment.

"E-E-Erm. Y-Yeah, sure? That uhmm… that sounds okay? This is- gosh, this is pretty sudden. Do you have any places in mind?"

_Why not train at a training field?_

_How about a walk in a park?_

_Why not a ramen place? I know this great restaurant…_

She just got back from training. Walks in parks were reserved for real couples, right? That only left one option left.

"Why not a ramen place? I know this great restaurant…"

"S-Sure, I could go for a bite to eat."

At the end of her talking, the world paused again, though this time the window popped up had only an empty bar with a mini picture of Tenten's face next its leftmost side. The empty bar slowly filled about a tenth of the way up before stopping. Words came up in a new window that overlapped the first.

_Congratulations, you got your first date. There are now more dialogue options. You're on your way, Casanova._

"Wait wait!" Naruto shouted before the world started up again. "What's going on? What's the point in all of this?"

The two previous boxes disappeared and a new one popped up.

_This is Naruto: the dating sim. The goal of this game to fully max out all the relationship bars of all the available romantic interests around you at least once. Bonus points for bagging ones that are out of your age range or characters off the beaten path. You have three years to achieve this goal, or everyone you know and love will die._

"But what's the point? And how is it possible to fill them all up? Isn't that, like, polygamy or something? Also, what do you mean everyone I know and love will-"

_How you go about the goal is your prerogative. It should be noted, however, that they don't all have to be filled at the same time, just that they all get maxed at one point or another._

"B-But, oh," Naruto stopped himself as he realized that the world was back to normal. "Erm… shall we go then?"

"Sure," Tenten said, walking next to him as he led her to their first date.

00000000

Naruto woke up peacefully in the hospital bed and sent a simmering glare at the Guidebook. "A dating sim, really?"

The Guidebook shrugged. "I thought it would be fun. Also, you'll find that the memories of your past lives are easier to come to terms to now."

Naruto nodded. "But… seriously? A dating sim?"

"Hey, you looked like you were enjoying yourself. I only programmed in a harem route for the sake of consistency. I never thought you'd actually take it."

A smattering of red showed up on Naruto's cheeks. "W-Well, it's not like I planned it out like that. It just sort of happened."

"Yeah… right… I'm actually a little bit reminded of that offshoot timeline."

"Offshoot timeline?"

"Yeah, it's a timeline that doesn't look really tied to anything to what I did, yet remains a differentiated version of the main timeline. In it, you're arranged to marry five women from five different nations to stop war."

"Huh? How does it go?"

"You get your arm cut off."

"Ouch."

"Buuuut everything works out in the end, more or less. Anyway, you up for another game, or do you want to do the dating sim over again?"

Naruto shrugged. "Show me what you got. Better not be anything weird, though."

00000000

Tycoon

Naruto breathed in the fresh air of the late morning as he gazed down on a small town with a small river running through it. Lazily, watermills chugged around and around, slowly grinding up foodstuffs or generating energy. What the people of this town didn't know was that they were right smack dab in the middle of four major commercial cities. Normally, this hamlet would be overlooked by any and all people traveling through the Land of Fire as exactly what it appeared to be. Naruto saw something different, however. He saw potential.

Pulling up the window telling him of the local prices, whether they be as small as an apple from a vendor or entire swaths of land, Naruto settled on the four major points entering the village and began manually going through the logistics on how he would go about creating roads through the hamlet connecting to the commercial centers. He was pretty bad at math as a rule, but was finding it easier and easier the more he used it, especially considering it had an actual impact on the job he was doing.

He felt a presence lean over his shoulder and look at the window he was writing on. "I still can't believe half the things you do," she murmured.

Naruto shrugged. "Adapt to survive. The business world is just as ruthless as the shinobi one. Well, not really, I guess. The business world will never slit your throat in front of you. Then again, if you piss people off enough, you could get yourself assassinated- Whatever. You get what I mean."

Ino nodded and looked at the little village with longing. "Oh, what I wouldn't give to be able to live in this place. So serene and peaceful."

"You'd pull your hair out in three hours. The people are uneducated, the only way to get a living is by farming, and it smells."

Ino groaned. "Why do you have to ruin everything?"

"If there's anything these past six months has taught me, it's that one should value pragmatism over all else."

"Do you even know what pragmatism means?"

"Pragmatism is the school of thought that people should shed useless things attached to themselves and to focus solely on the worldly. Oh, what was that? You weren't expecting me to know that?" Naruto turned around and leaned forward, coming into her personal space a bit to jokingly say "What now?"

Ino chuckled and pushed him away. "Okay I get, I get it. You know what you're talking about. So what's the plan with this place anyway? Like you said, it is pretty backwaters."

"That's correct. This place is far away from development. It is, however, right in the middle between four large commercial centers. Commercial centers that just so happen to be plagued with bandit problems all along their main roads."

Ino's eyes narrowed in realization. "Oh, you're devious. Is that the bandit leader you made a deal with? Isn't that a little, you know… sceevy?"

"They'll get taken care of sooner or later by some shinobi outfit or another." Naruto said dismissively. "What matters is that they can't exchange goods the way they are. When they hear of plans to build out four connecting roads that all come into a single spot that could act as an intermediary trading town with luxurious facilities and safe travel ways, they'll frontload the project with more money than it requires. That money will be put into getting the town up to snuff with accommodations."

"How are you going to convince them that this place will be good for it?"

Naruto smiled deviously. "I'm not well heard of in the business world as of yet, but anybody could do a quick background check and look at my previous work. Wave, Grass, Hotsprings. Everywhere I go, rapid development goes with me."

Ino scrunched her brow and looked up. "Rapid development? How do you manage…" Ino's eyes lit up. "Shadow clones. You built stuff with your shadow clones really quickly."

Naruto nodded. "At first, this place will be nothing more than a byways. As time progresses, merchants will put up shop to sell to the high traffic, basic commodities will be set up to care for a new residential base, heck, it might even get its own micro shinobi village to take care of any bandits who are chafing for a new place to roost. That's all in the future, though. For now, I buy the town hall, start my project, and send messages to the captains of industry to those four commercial cities."

"A man with a plan is pretty dangerous nowadays, I hear. But I have to know, what's your goal in all of this? Why… this? It wasn't long ago that you were shouting about becoming Hokage."

Naruto thought back to the morning of him graduating from academy, when the Guidebook first presented itself to him. He tried to ignore it at first, but gradually got sucked into the world of trade, profit, and finance.

"Because… It's finally something I can do right," Naruto said a little quietly.

Ino clapped him on the back a few times. "Ah, that's not true. You're good at making people laugh, and… um… other things, I'm sure."

Naruto straightened out his back and gazed down at the village one more time before turning around and walking back. "Regardless, my mission is to bring together all of the elemental nations in peace and harmony. A world with no war. A world where everyone tries to understand each other. With this game, I can do it. So I will."

00000000

Naruto slowly got up and rubbed his head dolefully. "Aww, man."

"Why the long face? You completed the goal didn't you? And rather nicely at that. I haven't seen leaps of strategic logic since I found a universe where Sherlock novels existed."

The Uzumaki stood up from the bed and began walking with the Guidebook. "I'm starting to have all these complex, conflicting emotions in me. I've fallen in love so many times. I've saved the world so many times. I've come back so many times… It's… hard to explain what I'm feeling."

The Guidebook only smiled and nodded. "You know what'll fix that?"

"No, what?"

"Forgetting about it for now and playing a videogame."

00000000

Racing

"WHO THE FUCK'S IDEA WAS THIS?! THIS IS SO SCARY AND WEIRD! AAAAHHHHHH!"

00000000

The Guidebook winced a little bit as Naruto woke back up from the hospital bed. "Too much?"

"NO MORE RACING GAMES!"

The Guidebook smiled and gave him a thumbs up. "I got just what you need."

00000000

Survival Horror

"WHO THE FUCK'S IDEA WAS THIS?! THIS IS SO SCARY AND WEIRD! AAAAHHHHHH!"

00000000

The Guidebook winced a little bit as Naruto woke back up from the hospital bed. "Too much?"

"NO MORE HORROR GAMES!"

The Guidebook smiled and game him a thumbs up. "I got just what you need."

00000000

Real-time strategy

"Okay, so if I send my chunin force on a patrol route here, then make my peasants farm gold here, and keep my main fighting force here, then I should be able to at least hold out until- Oh, fuck. They're rushing. They're rushing! Nope nope nope. Main fighting force, advance!... okaaayyy. looks like the fight's going in my favor. I need to get them back soon because my base is… undefended! Oh shit, it was a rouse. Get back there! Get back. Oh, goddamnit."

00000000

Naruto woke up from the hospital bed rubbing his head. "I don't think high minded strategy is my strongest area."

The Guidebook clapped him on the back a few times. "Neither did I, but it sure was fun watching you flail around like that."

00000000

Looter Shooter

Naruto stared at the strange weapon in his hands for a few seconds.

_Ultimate Destructor Shotgun Katana Windmill Shuriken of Laundry Death_

_+20 projectiles_

_+80 strength_

_+30 cloth washing skill_

_+20 agility_

_\+ 2 death_

He shook his head at the amalgamation of pointy blades, grips, strong leather, and corrugated steel (for washing clothes on, he assumed) with a sort of annoyance that could only be borne out of experiencing a certain event or action enough times that although it may have given him joy at one point or time, now filled him with nothing.

"This is just getting ridiculous," he muttered to himself as he swapped out his main weapon for the new one.

What? Its stats were better.

00000000

Naruto jumped out of bed with a gasp and much flailing arms. "Did I…. wait, what?"

"You just barely managed to beat the game. Nearly lost it when you blew up and you didn't get to see the aftermath, but hey, a win's a win."

Naruto shook his head to wipe away the fuzzies. "Anything else?"

The Guidebook tapped his chin in consideration a few times. "I've got a few more. I'm open to suggestions. Anything _you_ want to play?"

Naruto smiled. "Yeah. A few."

00000000

And so the game went on. Any genre, every sub-genre, mechanic, system, or way of doing things was tried out. Naruto failed. He tried again. Started over. Died. And was born again. He gained something every time and lost something of the same value.

He had fun. He raged. He cried. He burst out in happiness. He thought. He tried not to think. He screamed in horror. He fell over from exhaustion. He got married. He had children. He succeeded. He failed.

He lived.

He lived more lifetimes than anyone could even mentally process and then some.

And finally, he stopped. At the altar where he made the choice of retrying, starting over fresh, and finally quitting, he faltered for the first time.

The Guidebook found this strange and shot him a questioning look. "Anything wrong?"

Naruto didn't say anything. He simply looked away from the dais and stared the Guidebook in the eyes. Nothing had to be said. Behind those eyes were a thousand different Naruto's who lived a thousand different lives, found love a thousand different times, and succumbed to loneliness and hatred a thousand more.

The Guidebook's face went neutral. "Done?" he asked. It was a rhetorical question. This moment was a long time coming for the both of them.

Naruto nodded slowly.

The Guidebook put his hands on his hips and belted a great sigh of contentment. "Well, I had more ideas still, but it'd be a moot point if you didn't want to try them out with real enthusiasm. It's been fun man, well, mostly fun, but… you know what I mean."

Naruto's hand hovered over the _Quit _button.

"Just… Look man, before you hit that button, I want you to know something."

Naruto paused and looked back to the Guidebook.

"Whatever's beyond here, wherever you end up, whatever type of existence you choose to lead, just know this: life isn't worth living if you can't fail. And life isn't worth living if you can't get back up and try again after failing. That's the key concept of all videogames and it's also what makes them fun. Life is supposed to be fun like that and death is too. So whatever happens, make sure to fail, make sure to get back up, and make sure to have fun."

Naruto smiled again, for the last time. "Thanks," he said, pushing the button.

An Epilogue

**AN/ I just wanted to thank everyone.**

**And yes, I mean everyone.**

**I want to thank the people who read this story from start to finish.**

**The people who jumped in half-way through and quit halfway through**

**The ones who criticized and the ones who critiqued**

**The ones who never failed to comment and the ones who never did**

**The ones who PM'd me**

**The ones who favorited and followed**

**The ones who were too nice**

**The ones who were too mean**

**And the ones who were just right**

**I want to thank all of you for everything you've done for me as an aspiring writer. I began writing fanfiction with my first story about two years ago and that was the first time I'd written narrative since the fifth grade. Since then, I feel like I've become great, and if not that, then at least good.**

**It's all thanks to you and for that, you have my deepest thanks.**

**Have a gentlemanly life.**


End file.
